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J. A. Richardson. 



SStrI|ari00«*s Srfj^ns? 



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by 



J. A. Richardson 



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A. B. CALDWELL, Publisher 

ATLANTA. GEORGIA 

1914 






Copyright. 1914 
A B. CALDWELL 



©CJ.A376780 



JUL 20 I9i4 
4Uf 



ERRATA 

On dodiealinn page, fir-t line, read '^Georgia" after "19th." 

Page 72, after paragra])!! 2, read: "On the 9th of January, 
1788, Conneetieul ratified the Constitution with equal clearness 
as to the source of her authority: 'In the name of the people 
of Connecticut, ire, the delegates of the people of the said State, 
in general Convention assembled, pursuant to an Act of the 
Legislature, in Oct. last, do assent to, and ratify and adopt the 
Constitntion reported hi/ the Convention of delegates in Phila- 
delphia.' " 



S^6tratt0n 



To The Palmetto Guards — Company C of the 19th: 
Regiment, Volunteers — 

v:Jiose battlefields are in no less than six States; ivhose 
Victories are very many; whose drawn battles are very few; 
whose defeats are none; whose fallen comrades sleep in 
shallow graves as far separated as Gettysburg is from 
Olustee; ivhose muster roll numherod 126 brave hearts; 
whose fighting force afte" the battl- of the Second Manassas 
numbered but two able for duty; and whose consecrated 
and unfaltering devotion to the cause of Constitutional 
liberty amid unsurpassed trials and privations for four 
long years commend them to the veneration of their poster- 
ity, and all lovers of law and liberty to the end of time: 
These pages are devotedly, affectionately, and pa- 
triotically dedicated by their comrade and sincere 

FRIEND. 

J. A. Richardson. 



PREFACE. 



The writer makes no apology for issuing this volume. Its 
prime object is to refute the atrocious accusations against the 
South before, during and after the war ; and to do this within 
such a limited space as will be adapted to the wants of the gen- 
eral reader. 

We have written this book in the spare moments of a busy 
life. It has required about three years to accomplish our task. 
During that time ou rresearches have been extensive and thor- 
ough. We challenge an investigation of the facts upon which 
our conclusions are based. They are incontrovertible. 

Before the war, we were most bitterly and world-widely de- 
nounced because of the institution of slavery, for which both sec- 
tions were equally responsible. 

During the war, we were officially, and otherwise, denounced 
as traitors to our common country, and as rebels against the 
plan of the Constitution we had sworn to obey ; and this, too, by 
those who had declared this same Constitution, "A Compact 
with Death and a league with Hell." 

After the war, we were still called rebels and traitors. As 
late as July 12, 1911, Senator Heyburn, of Idaho, in the United 
States Senate, denounced our cause as "infamous." When re- 
buked by John Sharp Williams, he asked, "Well, was it a glorious 
cause?" .We propose to enlighten this benighted Westerner and 
others, and to prove that it was a glorious cau^-e. 

If in this volume any expressions seem harsh and bitter let it 
not be attributed to any lingering animosity on the part of the 
author, but to the facts that falsely proclaimed him a traitor. 
Let it not be attributed to the passing of slavery, for, as we have 
shown in the proper place, that this institution \>rouId have been 
abolished without the war ; and, besides, eighty per cent of the 
Southern soldiers did not own slaves. Nor let it be attributed 
to the failure of the Confederacy, but to the base misrepresenta- 
tions and vituperations heaped on the people of the South. The 
home of secession was not in the South, but in the North, in the 



midst of the enemies of the Constitution, the anti-slavery agita- 
tors of the North. It was there the abusers of the South and 
the Constitution Hved, and there they multiplied till they were 
sufficiently strong to disregard both the demands of the Consti- 
tution and the rights of the South. 

We, therefore, ask that all our words which are seemingly se- 
vere be regarded in the light of the facts. If still It is believed 
they are too severe, write them by the side of the words of James 
G. Blaine, found in this volume (Chap. XXXIX) and if they 
prove to be one-tenth as cruel and unauthorized as the words of 
"the plumed knight," our apologies are already made. 

Just one other word here; every true Southern veteran is an 
American citizen of the truest type, as loyal as the loyalest, as 
willing to imperil his life in the interests or defense of the com- 
mon country, as the most patriotic son of any section of this 
great American Republic. But they zvill never confess that their 
cause zcas not that of the fathers — that of the common Consti- 
tution of the American States forming the American Union. 

They believe that their unparalleled devotion to the American 
Constitution has a tendency to enshrine it in the American heart 
as never before ; and to give it a place of security unknown be- 
fore their great sacrifice for its principles. If constitutional gov- 
ernment is to be preserved unimpaired for the coming genera- 
tions, it must be, and it zvill he through the conservative spirit 
of the South. 

The Author. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



I.— The Part Played by the South in Establishing Ameri- 
can Independence 17 

II. — The Institution of Slavery 33 

III. — The Two Compacts, The Two Federations 53 

IV. — The Two Compatcs, Continued 62 

V. — The Ordinances of the States Ratifying the Consti- 
tution 70 

VI. — The Real Nature of the Government of the United 

States 81 

VIL—'The Unwritten Constitution" 97 

VIII. — Ignorance as to the Constitution An Encourage- 
ment to the Violation of Its Terms 103 

IX. — Lincoln's Celebrated Cooper Institute Speech 113 

X. — The Cooper Institute Speech, Continued 124 

XL — The Cooper Institute Speech, Continued 136 

XII. — What the South Demanded in the Sixties 146 

XIII. — The South's Demands for the Constitution, Con- 
tinued, Also the Speech of Toombs, Continued 161 

XIV. — The South and the Constitution Subordinated to 
An Unconstitutional Platform, and the Govern- 
ment to An Unconstitutional Policy 176 

XV. — The South, Her Accusers, Efforts to Preserve the 

Union and the Constitution Unimpaired 187 

XVI. — Sovereignty and Secession 201 

XVII. — Sovereignty and Secession, Continued 223 

XVIIL— The North the Real Rebels 243 

XIX. — A reply to Charles Francis Adams 254 



XX. — Fourteen Substitutes for the Constitution Grouped..27S 
XXI. — Coercion Under the Smooth Phrases of Executing 

the Laws and Protecting Public Property 295 

XXII. — Lincoln's First Inaugural Address 305 

XXIIL— Who Caused the War? 322 

XXIV.— Who Caused the War? (Continued) 333 

XXV.— Who Inaugurated the War? 345 

XXVI. — Lincoln's First Call for Troops 355 

XXVII.— Absolutism 367 

XXVIII.— An Effort to Unite the North, Retain the Bor- 
der States, and Reconcile the Foreign Nations : 

The Trent Affair 377 

XXIX. — The Emancipation Proclamation 390 

XXX. — Other Facts Connected With Emancipation 414 

XXXI. — A Wider View and Reply to Distinguished 

Authors 427 

XXXII.— A False War-Power Under the Plea of 

Necessity 441 

XXXIII. — Significant Facts and Important Witnesses 451 

XXXIV.— A Sketch of Lincoln's Life 463 

XXXV.— Insanity of Genius 473 

XXXVI. — The Fall of the Confederacy and the Arrest 

and Imprisonment of Davis 488 

XXXVII. — The Imprisonment of Davis (Continued) 507 

XXXVIII.— The Failure to Try Davis and Its Meaning 517 

XXXIX. — The Treatment of Prisoners 544 

XL. — Sherman's March Through Georgia, South C aro- 

lina and North Carolina 572 

XLI.— The Confederate Navy ., 588 



INTRODUCTION 



In these pages it is assumed that all arguments not based on the 
Constitution are irrelevant. 

In discussing questions of right under the Constitution we 
necessarily deal with fact\s, authorities, Legislatures, Conventions, 
and the Constitution itself. 

1787. — The Government itself, in its very formation, declared 
the right of secession, in expressed terms of the Constitution, by 
granting the right of nine States to secede from the former Union, 
zvhich was declared to be "perpetual." 

1788. — The Federalist, in answer to questions, often declared 
that the proposed Constitution required "the States to be dis- 
tinct and independent sovereignties." 

1790. — Hamilton," as Secretary of the Treasury, under Wash- 
ington, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, "Unless the Bill for the As- 
sumption of the State Debts be passed there will be a separation 
of the States." He regarded the right of secession as an indis- 
putable fact; and this at the time of the first administration of 
the Government. 

1799. — During the next administration the Assembly of Vir- 
ginia passed a set of resolutions, and sent them to all the States. 
The following six States replied, endorsing them : New Hamp- 
shire (Webster's native State), New York, Connecticut, Dela- 
ware, Vermont, and Massachusetts, Webster's adopted State. 
These resolutions declare, not less than four times, that the Con- 
stitution is a Compact between the States. They are in part as 
follows : "That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily 
declare that in view of the powers of the Federal Government, as 
resulting from the Compact, to which the States are Parties, as 
limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument, con- 
stituting the Compact, as no farther valid than they are author- 
ized by the grants enumerated in that Compact', and that in case 
of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers 
not granted by the said Compact, the States who are parties 
thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for 
arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within 



10 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

their respective limits the authorities, rights and liberties apper- 
taning to them. 

"That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret 
that a spirit has, in sundry instances, been manifested by the 
Federal Government to enlarge its pozvcrs by forced construc- 
tions of the Constitutional Charter, which defines them; and that 
indications have appeared of a design to expound certain phrases 
(which having been copied from the very limited grant of powers 
in the former Articles of Confederation were the less liable to be 
misunderstood) , so as to destroy the meaning and efifect of the 
particular enumeration which necessarily explains and limits 
the general phrases, and so as to consolidate the States, by de- 
grees, into one Sovereignty, the obvious tendency and inevitable 
result of which would be, to transform the present Republican 
System of the United States into an absolute, or, at least, a 
mixed Monarchy." (Works of Hamilton, Vol. 6, page 530). 

These are the resolutions of seven States at a time when the 
meaning of the Constitution was not debatable. 

1799. — New Hampshire, revising her Constitution, copied from 
that of Massachusetts these words: "Each State retains its 
sovereignty, freedom, and independence." 

1803. — Judge Tucker, Professor of Law in the William and 
Mary University in Virginia, a jurist and publicist of acknowl- 
edged ability, a strong Union man and a distinguished patriot, 
said, in the Appendix to his edition of Blackstone's Commentary : 
"The Federal Government, then, appears to be the organ 
through which the United Republics communicate with foreign 
nations and with each other. Their submission to its operations is 
voluniary; and its councils, its engagements, its authority, are 
theirs, modified and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from 
theirs, not a flame in which they have been consumed, nor a vortex 
in which thev have been szvallowed up. Each is still a perfect 
State, still a Sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should 
the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as 
such, in the most unlimited extent." 

1814. — It is universally conceded by reputable historians that 
the New Endand States would have seceded in 1814 had not 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 11 

the war with England terminated when it did. (Portland, Ore- 
gonian, 1902). 

1824. — William Rawle, an eminent jurist of Pennsylvania, 
U. S. District Attorney under Washington, and, by Washington 
offered the Attorney Generalship of the United States, wrote 
"Razvle's Viezv of the Constitution'' a celebrated work, adopted 
as a text-book at West Point. In this work Mr. Rawle says, 
"The Union is an association of the people of Republics; its 
preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those 
Republics. The principle of representation, although certainly 
the wisest and the best, is not essential to the being of a Republic : 
but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved ; 
and, therefore, the guarantee must be so construed. Tt depends 
on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of representa- 
tion ; because it depends on itself zvhether it unll continue a mem- 
ber of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with 
the principles on whch all our political systems are founded : 
which is that the people have, in all cases, a right to determine 
how they will be governed ; a right ingredient in the original 
composition of the Government ; which though not expressly 
avowed, was mutuallv understood. 

"As to the remaining States, among themselves, there is no 
opening for doubt. Secession may reduce them to the smallest 
integer admitting combination. They would remain united under 
the same principles, and regulations, among themselves, that now 
apply to the whole. For a State cannot be compelled to withdraw 
from the Union, and, therefore, if two or more States determine 
to remain united, although all the others desert them, nothing 
can be discovered in the Constitution to prevent it." 

1830.. — In the United States Senate, speaking on the Foote 
Resolutions, Daniel Webster said: "// (Constitution) is the 
original bargain — the Compact — let it stand — let the advantage 
of it be fidly enjoyed. The Union is itself too full of benefits 
to be hazarded in propositions for changing its original basis. 
I go for the Constitution as it is. But I am resolved not to 
submit in silence to accusations which impute to us (the North) 
a disposition to evade the Constitutional Compact." Note the 



12 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

fact that Webster here calls the Constitution "the Compact" 
and "the Constit/utional Compact." 

1833. — In the Senate of the United States, speaking on Cal- 
houn's Resolution, Daniel Webster said of the Constitution : "If 
contract, it rests on plighted faith, and the mode of redress would 
be to declare the whole void. States may secede, if a 
League or Compact." It is true, in this speech, he denied that 
the Constitution is a compact, saying-, "The Constitution means 
a Government, not a Compact, flatly contradicting the Webster 
of three years ago, contradicting the the ratifying ordinances 
of his native State and adopted State, contradicting Washington, 
Hamilton, JeflFerson and every other authoritative expounder of 
the Constitution. But he admits in this speech all that the 
South demanded in the Sixties, viz : "States may secede, if a 
League or Compact." 

1834. — Judge Story issued his celebrated work, "Story on the 
Constitution," in which he made a great eflfort to prove that the 
Government of the Unitd Stats is a "National Government proper, 
not Federal. In this work he is frank to admit the right of 
secession, if the Constitution is a Compact between the States, 
thus fully agreeing with Daniel Webster of 1833. In commenting 
on Judge Tucker's Commentary on the Constitution, he says: 
"The obznons deductions, which may be, and indeed have been 
drawn, from considering the Constitution as a Compact between 
the States, are that it operates as a mere treaty, or convention 
between them, and has an obligatory force upon each State no 
longer than it suits its pleasure, or its consent continues ; that 
each State has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, 
extent and obligations of the instrument , without being at all 
bound by the interpretation of the Federal Government, or by 
that of any other State; and that each State retains the power 
to zvithdraw from the Confederacy, and to dissolve its connec- 
tion, when such shall be its choice; and may suspend the opera- 
tions of the Federal Government, and nullify its acts within 
its own territorial limits, whenever, in its own opinion, the 
exergency of the case may require. These conclusions may not 
always be avowed; but they flozv naturally from the doctrines 
which zve have under consideration. They go to the extent of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 13 

reducing the Government to a mere Confederacy." (Story on the 
Constitution, Vol. 1, Book 3, Sec. 321). 

Thus Judge Story is compelled to admit that if the Constitu- 
tion is a Compact the right of Secession is "an obvious deduc- 
tion" ; that it admits of no doubt. It is known that Lincoln 
called it a Compact. Therefore, according to Story and Web- 
ster, he violated "an obvious deduction of the Constitution." 

1844. — When the admission of Texas was a question, the Leg- 
islature of Massachusetts passed the following resolution : 

"That the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested 
on the threshold, may drive these States into a dissolution of 
the Union." Massachusetts still believed that the Con.<:titution 
7vas a Compact up to sixteen years before the election of Lin- 
coln ; and that Massachusetts could be driven into secession. 

1845.— On the 22nd day of February, 1845, the Legislature 
of the same State (Massachusetts), resolved: 

"As the powers of Legislation granted in the Constitution of 
the United States to Congress, do not embrace the case of ad- 
mission of a foreign State, or foreign Territory, by Legislation, 
into the Union, such an act of admission would have no binding 
force whatever on the people of Massachusetts." (Lunt's His- 
tory of the Origin of the War, pp 467-S). 

These resolutions were discussed in Congress, and no man 
raised his voice against them on the ground that they were un- 
constitutional. Besides, Nile's Register contained six leading 
editorials on these resolutions, but while condemning them, the 
editor did not question their constitutionality. Thus fifteen years 
before the War New England and the Country at large did not 
question the right of secession. 

1848. — Abraham Lincoln, in the House of Representatives, 
said: "Any people anywhere have the tight to rise up and throw 
olf the existing Government, and establish one that suits them 
better. This is a most valuable right; — a right we hope and 
believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to 
cases in which the whole people of an existing Government, may 
choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may 
revolutionise, and make their own of so much of the territory 
as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of 



14 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

such people tnay revolutionise, putting down a minority, inter- 
mingled zvith, or near about them, who niav oppose their move- 
ments. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or 
old laws, but to break up both and make nezv ones." 

This very strong secession speech zvas inude just thirteen rears 
before the war, 

1855. — On the 23rd day of F'ebruary, 1855, Senator Wade from 
Ohio, said, in the United States Senate: "Who is to judge, in 
the last resort, of the violation of the Constitution of the United 
States by the enactment of a law? Who is the final arbiter? 
The General Government or the States in their Sovereignty f 
Why, SHr, to yield that point is to yield up all the rights of the 
States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate the Gov- 
ernment into a miserable despotism. I tell you, sir, whatever 
you may think of it, if this bill pass, collisions will arise between 
the Federal and the State jurisdictions, — conflicts in which the 
States will never yield ; for the more you undertake to lead them 
with acts like this the greater will be their resistance. 

"I said there were States in this Union whose highest tribvmals 
had adjudged that bill to be unconstitutional, and that I was one 
of those who believed it unconstitutional ; and that under the 
old resolutions of 1798 and 1799, a State must not only be the 
judge of that, but of the remedy in such a case." This was 
only five years before the war. It was at this time the judgment 
of all the courts. Yet Lincoln declared in 1861 that the Federal 
Government was the judge in such cases ; and that he was the 
Government. 

18G0.— On the 24th day of May, 1860, the Senate of the United 
States passed, by a vote of 36 to 19, a set of resolutions, in- 
troduced by Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, the first of which 
reads as follows : 

"That in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the States 
adopting the same, acted severally as free and independent Sov- 
ereignties, delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised 
by the Federal Government for the increased security of each 
against dangers, domestic as well as foreign ; and that any mter- 
meddling of any one or more States, or by a combination of 
their citizens, with the domestic institutions of others, on any 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 15 

pretext whatever ^ political, moral, or religious, with a view to 
their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitu- 
tion, insulting- to the States so interfered with, endangers their 
domestic peace and tranquility — objects for which the Constitu- 
tion was formed — and, by necessary consequences, tends to 
weaken and destroy the Union itself." Twenty States voted for 
this resolution. One State divided its vote. Four voted against 
it ,and eight refused to vote. The States refusing to vote ivere 
of the numbers that had nulliiied the Fugitive Slave Lazv. And 
this was the very year before the war — less than a year before 
the inauguration of Lincoln. 

Thus we have an unbroken chain of evidence from the time 
the Constitution was framed to the inaugural address of Presi- 
dent Lincoln that each State was an "independent Sovereignty," 
and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exer- 
cise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent." All 
the evidence we have given is based, principally, on the fact 
that the Constitution is a Compact betzveen the States. That it 
was a Compact is sufficiently shown by the evidence produced 
in this introduction. No eminent jurist ever denied it till 182fi, 
when Chancellor Kent's Commentaries appeared : and he makes 
no argument based on the Constitution, but simply deals in bare 
assertions. 

The Constitution itself says, 

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in the 
Union a Republican form of Government : and shall protect each 
of them against invasion and domestic violence." 

This is the language of a Master, or a Lord, to his servant. 
Mark the words, "shall protect." They are compulsory. The 
servant has no choice except to obey. To refuse is disloyalty — 
rebellion. The United States themselves zvere no exception. 
What then shall be said of the invasion of the Southern States 
of this Union by the Federal Government? Can the Govern- 
ment justify itself on the ground that these States had actually 
seceded? Did not that Government assert to the contrary? If, 
then, from the standpoint of the Federal Government, these 
States were still in the Union, how could that Government invade 
them without violating the Constitution? May we not ask if 



16 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Booth's bullet did not do more to establish Lincoln in the affec- 
tion of the ,s:reat American heart than did his loyalty to the 
Constitution ? 

Forty Years After the War, the "American Crisis Biographies" 
was written. In its preface are words like these: "The Civil 
War will not be treated as a rebellion, but as the great event in 
the history of our Nation, which after forty years it is now 
recognised to ha^r been." 

1914. — Today Robert E. Lee, the great military leader of the 
Southern cause, is in the Hall of Fame — placed there by the 
Federal Government. Thus the Government itself, in less than 
a half century after the war, has declared that the cause of the 
South was not the cause of rebels, but of patriots, true to the 
Constitution of the Union and all its sacred pledges. 

If Lincoln Had Failed where would be his honors today? Does 
success in violating a Nation's Constitution merit imperishable 
honors? The glare of success amid the shouts of triumph may 
conceal, for a time, the wrongs of a violated Constitution, but 
not forever. Would he not have used the same means in either 
case? Has unconstitutional success any real merit greater than 
unconstitutional failure^ 

If Lincoln Had Survived the War with what difficulties would 
he have been confronted? Deprived of the sympathy his as- 
sassination brought him from all civilization, including the South, 
he would have heard in the halls of Congress the cry from the 
lips of Thaddeus Stevens and his followers, "there is no longer 
any Constitution." He would have been called upon to justify, on 
a Constitutional bases, a policy that sacrificed eight billions of 
property, and, approximately, one million of patriotic lives. Could 
he have done it, and been the recipient of the honors now be- 
stowed on his name? 



CHAPTER I. 

THE PART PLAYED BY THE SOUTH IN 

ESTABLISHING AMERICAN 

INDEPENDENCE. 

The South sounded the first note that fired the Colonial heart 
and pointed the way to independence. It was in 1764 in the 
House of the Burgesses of Virginia. The man who sounded 
that note was no other than the eloquent orator in homespun 
clothes, known simply as Patrick Henry. That speech immor- 
talized him and the occasion. Thomas Jefiferson is the high au- 
thority that "Mr. Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the 
ball of the Revolution." 

The correctness of this position is easily established. At the 
same time the facts present a most interesting chapter in the 
history of the American Colonies. It was in March 1764 when 
the British Parliament passed resolutions preparatory to levying 
a revenue on the colonies by a stamp act. The passage of these 
resolutions was communicated to the House of Burgesses of Vir- 
ginia by the colonial agent. After mature consideration a com- 
mittee was appointed to prepare "an address to the King, a mem- 
orial to the Lords, and a remonstrance to the House of Com- 
mons." On the 18th day of December 1764 this committee made 
its report which was amended and then concurred in. They 
were firm, clear and strong in declaring the Constitutional ex- 
emption of the Colonies from taxation. Yet the tone was that 
of the suppliant, and the picture it drew was that of anticipated 
suffering. It thus indicated no opposition beyond remonstrance. 

In January 1765, the famous Stamp Act was passed, to be 
effective the next November. The act was regarded as a great 
wrong from one extremity of the Colonies to the other, yet no 
sign of resistance was manifest. Both the press and the people 
seemed disposed to submit as the only alternative. The Penn- 
sylvania Gazette on the 30th of M^y, 1765, said, "We hear the 
sum of money arising from the new stamp duties in North Amer- 
ica, for the first five years, is chiefly to be applied towards mak- 



18 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ing commodious post-roads from one province to another, erect- 
ing bridges where necessary, and other measures equally im- 
portant to facilitate an extension trade" — the tone of conciliation 
and submission. 

All was confusion. What to hope, what to fear, what to be 
done were questions on every lip. Some entertained faint hopes 
that a united remonstrance from all the colonies would induce 
England to change her policy. But these were comparatively 
few. Many considered submission unavoidable. The idea oi 
resistance by force seemed to have had no advocates. No heart 
seemed bold enough to conceive it. The most intrepid now skulk- 
ed, yet it was an unwilling skulk. They were not bold enough 
to speak words of defiance. 

It was now that Patrick Henry stepped to the front, the 
dauntless hero of the hour. His friends knew his worth, and 
earnestly desired that he should be a member of the House of 
Burgesses. William Johnson had been elected a member of the 
Burgesses. He was induced to resign and accept the position 
of coroner. Henry was elected to fill the vacancy on the firtt 
of May 1765. On the 20th of May he was added to the com- 
mittee on the Courts of Justice. 

In that House of Burgesses was Peyton Randolph, the King's 
Attorney-General, distinguished for his eloquence and virtues of 
heart; Richard Bland, the finished scholar and profound logi- 
cian ; Edmund Pendleton, accurate and clear in speech, having 
few equals ; George Wythe, the logician, keen and sarcastic in 
repartee; and Robert Henry Lee, called the Cicero of the House, 
at home in all the walks of literature and science. Among these 
illustrious orators now stood the Plebian Henry. He had not 
their polish nor their erudition. But he had a constancy of soul 
that no power could shake ; a genius that no erudition could cope 
with; a boldness that knew no fear; and an imagination "that 
colored with the felicity of Titian." 

With becoming modesty he waited for those who had remon- 
strated with the King, the Lords, and the House of Commons 
to renew their opposition to the Stamp Act. He waited till 
within three days of the close of the session and then introduced 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 19 

his celebrated resolutions on the Stamp Act. 

These resolutions were as follows : 

"Resolved : That the first adventurers and settlers of this, 
his Majesty's Colony and dominion, brought with them, and 
transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty's sub- 
jects, since inhabiting in this, his Majesty's Colony, all the privi- 
leges and immunities, that have at any time been held, enjoyed, 
and possessed by the people of Great Britain. 

"Resolved : That by two royal charters, granted by King James 
the First, the colonists aforesaid, are entitled to all the privileges, 
liberties and immunities of denizens and natural born subjects, 
to all intents and purposes, as if they had been abiding and born 
within the realms of England. 

"Resolved: That the taxation of the people by themselves, or 
by persons chosen by themselves to represent them who can 
only know what taxes the people are able to bear, and the 
easiest mode of raising them, and are equally affected by such 
taxes themselves, is the distinguishing characteristic of British 
freedom, and without which the ancient Constitution can not 
subsist. 

"Resolved : That his Majesty's liege people of this most an- 
cient colony, have uninterruptedly enjoyed the right of being thus 
governed by their taxes and internal policies, and that the same 
have never been forfeited, or any other way given up, but hath 
been constantly recognized by the King and people of Great 
Britain. 

"Resolved : Therefore, that the General Assembly of this col- 
ony have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions 
upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to 
visit such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other than 
the General Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to 
destroy British, as well as American freedom." 

Mr. Henry retained a copy of these resolutions. They were 
found among his papers on his death. They were sealed and 
thus endorsed : "These written resolutions passed the House of 
Burgesses in May, 1765. They formed the first opposition to the 
Stamp Act, and the scheme of taxing America by the British 



20 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Parliament. All the Colonies, either through fear, or want of . 
opportunity to form an opposition, or from influence of some 
kind or other, had remained silent, I had been for the first time 
elected a Burgess, unacquainted with the forms of the house, 
and the members that composed it. Finding the men of weight 
averse to opposition, and the commencement of the tax at hand, 
and that no person was likely to step forth, I determined to ven- 
ture, and alone, unadvised, and unassisted, on a blank leaf of an 
old law book wrote the wthin. Upon offering them to the house, 
violent debates ensued. Many threats were uttered and much 
abuse cast on me, by the party for submission. After a long* 
and warm contest, the resolutions passed by a very small ma- 
jority, perhaps of one or two only. The alarm spread through- 
out America with astonishing quickness, and the ministerial par- 
ty were overwhelmed. The great point of resistance to British 
taxation was universally established in the colonies. This brought 
on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave 
independence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a 
curse, will depend upon the use our pveople make of the blessings 
a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise they will 
be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they 
will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a na- 
tion. 

"Reader ! whoever thou art, remember this ; and in thy sphere, 
practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others. 

P. Henry." 

These are the celebrated resolutions introduced by Patrick Hen- 
ry in the Virginia Burgesses in May 1765. He was justly proud 
of them. He therefore most carefully preserved a copy, by seal- 
ing them, and directing that they be opened only by his executor. 
They are therefore genuine. 

These resolutions differ from all previous remonstrances and 
addresses as to the time and circumstances, and as to the legis- 
lative body addressed. All previous state papers and remon- 
strances against the Stamp Act were addressed to the legisla- 
ture of Great Britain. These resolutions of Henry's were ad- 
dressed to the legislature of Virginia. All previous remon- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 21 

strances were couched in most respectful terms, and in tones 
of submission. These resolutions of Henry's were in defiance 
of Great Britain. All previous remonstrances were made before 
the Stamp Act was passed. These resolutions of Henry's were 
introduced and passed after the Stamp Act had become a law, 
and further remonstrance was useless. All previous remon- 
strances induced Great Britain to believe the Colonies would sub- 
mit gracefully to encroachments upon their rights. The fifth 
and last resolution of Henry's charged, "that any attempt to 
visit such power in any person or persons whatsoever, other 
than the general assembly aforesaid has a manifest tendency to 
destroy British as well as American freedom," a direct charge 
that the King and lords, and commons of Great Britain were 
guilty of tyranny and despotism. 

The daring boldness of this charge startled the assembly. The 
colonies were weak and Great Britain the mightiest power of 
the world. They were without means of defense, and Great 
Britain was well-equipped. Well might the Burgesses have been 
alarmed. The resolutions were resisted not only by the royalists, 
but by a number who afterwards were among the ablest cham- 
pions of American liberty. 

Let us now have Mr. Jefferson's account of the transaction. 
It is in these words : "Mr. Henry moved and Mr. Johnston sec- 
onded these resolutions successively. They were opposed by 
Messrs. Randolph, Bland, Pendleton, Wythe, and all the old mem- 
bers whose influence in the house, had, till then, been unbroken. 
They did it, not from any question of our rights, but on the 
ground that the same sentiments had been, at their preceding ses- 
sion, expressed in a more conciliatory form, to which the answers 
were not yet received. But torrents of sublime eloquence from 
Henry, backed by the solid reasoning of Johnston prevailed. The 
last however and strongest resolution was carried but by a single 
vote. The debate on it was most bloody. I was half a student, 
and stood at the door of communication between the house and 
the lobby (for as yet there was no gallery) during the whole de- 
bate and vote; and I well remember, that, after the members on 
the division were told and declared from the chair, Peyton Ran- 



22 RICHARDSO>f'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

dolph (the Attorney-General) came out at the door where I was 
standing, and said as he entered the lobby, 'By God, I would 
have given 500 guineas for a single vote:' for one vote would 
have negatived the resolution. Mr. Henry left the town that 
evening ; and the next morning before the meeting of the House, 
Col. Peyton Randolph, then of the Council, came to the Hall of 
Burgesses, and sat at the Clerk's desk till the house bell rang, 
thumbing over the volumes of journals, to find a precedent of 
expunging a vote of the house, which, he said, had taken place 
while he was a member or clerk of the house, I do not recollect 
which. I stood by him at the end of the table, a considerable 
part of the time, looking on, as he turned over the leaves ; but 
I do not recollect whether he found the erasure. In the mean- 
time, some of the timid members who had voted for the strong- 
est resolution had become alarmed ; and as soon as the house 
met, a motion was made and carried to expunge it from the 
Journals. There being at that day but one printer, and he en- 
tirely under the control of the Governor, I do not know that this 
resolution ever appeared in print. I write this from memory: 
but the impression made on me at the time was such as to fix 
the facts indelibly in my mind. I suppose the original journal 
was among those destroyed by the British, or its obliterated face 
might be appealed to. And here I will state that Burk's state- 
ment of Mr. Henry's consenting to withdraw two resolutions, by 
way of compromise with his opponents is entirely erroneous." 

As to the erasure of the fifth resolution, Mr. Jefferson is sus- 
tained by Judge Paul "Carrington who was a member of the Bur- 
gesses of 1765: and is also sustained by the fact that the journal 
of the day does not contain the 5th resolution, but does contain 
the other four. 

Mr. Jefferson says, "By these resolutions and his manner of 
supporting them Mr. Henry took the lead out of the hands of 
those who had, theretofore, guided the proceedings of the House, 
that is to say of Pendleton. Wythe, Bland, and Randolph. 

Mr. Wirt, Henry's biographer says of him, "It was in the 
mndst of this magnificent debate, while he was descanting on the 
tyranny of the obnoxious act that he exclaimed in a voice of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 23 

thunder and with the look of a god, 'Caesar had his Brutus; 
Charles the first his Cromwell — and George the third' — ('Trea- 
son,' cried the speaker, 'treason, treason,' echoed from every 
part of the house. It was one of those trying moments which 
is decision of character. Henry faltered not for an instant; but 
rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing his eye of the most deter- 
mined fire on the speaker he finished his sentence with the firmest 
emphasis) 'may profit by their example. If this be treason, make 
the most of it." 

The fire kindled by Henry's resolutions spread to all the other 
colonies, and the spirit of resistance rapidly grew, until "the 
whole continent was in a flame ;" and the Stamp Act was render- 
ed impracticable. 

Thus we have sustained our point, that it was in the South 
the first note was sounded that fired the colonial heart and point- 
ed the way to liberty and independence. 

Again: When, in 1775, the export of powder from England 
was prohibited, and the seizure of powder and arms in the sev- 
eral provincial magazines followed, who was it that first fired the 
Virginia Colony and kindled the flame of patriotism throughout 
the American Colonies, and then encouraged the spirit of revolt 
against the insult ? It was no other than the same brave Patrick 
Henry. He first of all aroused by his eloquence universal indigna- 
tion against the conduct of Governor Dunmore, who clandestinely 
had removed in the dead of the night twenty barrels of powder 
from the magazine in Williamsburg and placed it on board a 
vessel in the James River. He saw British oppression at the 
very door. He knew the sword of Great Britain was lifted to 
strike, and that it would sooner or later fall on unarmed and de- 
fenseless people. He knew that even the removal of twenty bar- 
rels of powder in such an emergency would put the colony at a 
great inconvenience. He therefore resolved that the Colony it- 
self should strike before an overwhelming force should come down 
on them. He resolved that all subjection and deference to roy- 
alty should be dissolved; and that the resources of the country 
should be developed ; that the people might know and realize their 
strength by being brought together ; that an inevitable revolution 



24 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

should begin in the Virginia colony; that the martial prowess 
•of the entire country should be awakened ; and "that the soldiery 
should be animated by that proud and resolute confidence which 
a successful enterprise in the commencement of a contest never 
fails to inspire." 

These sentiments were then avowed by him to two confiden- 
tial friends, Col. Richard Morris, and George Dabney. He said 
to Morris and Dabney, "You may in vain talk to them (the peo- 
ple) about duties on tea, etc. These things will not affect them. 
They depend on principles too abstracted for their comprehension 
and feeling. But tell them of the robbery of the magazine, and 
that the next step will be to disarm them, you bring the subject 
home to their bosoms and they will be ready to fly to arms to 
defend themselves." 

He did not hesitate. He requested the members of the In- 
dependent Company of Hanover and the County Committee to 
meet him in arms at New Castle on the 2nd day of May on busi- 
ness of highest importance. He eloquently exposed to them the 
plan of the British Ministry to reduce the colonies to subjection 
by robbing them of all the means of defending their rights. He 
pictured in vivid colors the fields of Lexington and Concord 
still red with the fresh blood of their countrymen. He showed 
them that the plunder of the Williamsburg Magazine was but 
a part of a general plan of subjugation. He admonished them 
that the time had now come when they must decide whether they 
would live freemen and leave the heritage of freemen to their 
children, or become the hewers of wood, and drawers of water for 
the tools of a corrupt and tyrannical ministry. He painted the 
country in a state of subjection. In that picture were the dark 
lines of abject debasement, and vassalage, at which they shud- 
dered with horror and indignation. He then drew another pic- 
ture. It was the picture of prosperous homes in a land of lib- 
erty and security. Under the touch of his genius the outlines 
glowed like the noon-day sun. In its light they saw rich fields 
of waving grain, and seas white with the sails of commerce. He 
reminded them that the God of right who had overthrown Phar- 
aoh in the Red Sea was the same and unchangeable God, and 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 25 

that his strong arms would be their help ; that they should snatch 
the prize of liberty then within their grasp. He assured them 
they had no time to lose ; that their enemies in the colony were 
few and weak, and by quick and vigorous work they could com- 
pel the restoration of the powder, or secure an order on the 
king's revenues in the hands of the receiver-general, which could 
fairly balance the account ; and that the Hanover volunteers would 
thus strike the first blow in the colony in the great cause of 
American liberty, and would cover themselves with unfading 
laurels. 

This was the substance of his speech. The coloring was his 
own — inimitable touch. The effect was wonderful. The meet- 
ing was a flame. The decision was immediate. The powder 
should be returned, or counterbalanced by a reprisal. The Cap- 
tain of the Hanover Volunteers resigned his commission in Hen- 
ry's favor, and accepted the commission of Lieutenant. A de- 
tachment was sent across the river to the residence of Richard 
Corbin, the King's receiver-general, to demand from him three 
hundred and thirty pounds, the estimated value of the powder. 
If he refused he was to be made a prisoner, in which case he 
was to be treated with all possible respect, and brought to Don- 
castle's ordinary, about sixteen miles above Williamsburg, where 
the detachment was to rejoin the main body. The detachment 
failed to find Corbin at home. 

The marching of this gallant Company headed by a man of 
Henry's distinction produced a wonderful effect. Companies 
sprung up on all sides and hastened to allign themselves under 
Henry's banner, swelling the number of armed men to at least 
five thousand. 

The royalists were filled with dismay. Lady Dunmore fled 
to the man-of-war lying off Little York. Even patriots of Wil- 
liamsburg were alarmed and denounced the act as that of rash- 
ness. Messengers were sent to Henry, and he was entreated to 
desist from his purpose : Henry was inflexible. The messen- 
gers were retained that they might not report his strength. The 
march was continued with the greatest possible celerity. In vain 
Governor Dunmore issued his proclamation denouncing the move- 



26 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ment and calling upon the people to resist it. The people were 
deaf to his call. He filled the palace with arms, and ordered up 
a detachment of marines on the 4th of May, 1775. 

Still the Governor was miuch alarmed and sent messengers to 
meet Henry with the receiver-generals bill of exchange for the 
sum required. This was accepted by Henry as satisfactory ; and 
the following receipt was given by Henry : 

"Doncastle's ordinary, New Kent, May the 4th, 1775, received 
from the Hon. Richard Corbin Esq. his Majesty's receiver-general 
330 lbs., as a compensation forthe gunpowder lately taken out 
of the public magazine by the Governor's order ; which money 
I promise to convey to the Virginia delegates at the general Con- 
gress, to be, under their direction, laid out in gunpowder for the 
Colony's use, and to be stored as they shall direct, until the next 
colony convention or general assembly ; unless it shall be neces- 
sary, in the mean time, to use the same to the defence of this 
colony. It is agreed, that in case the next convention shall de- 
termine that any part of the said money ought to be returned 
to his Majestys' said receiver-general, that the same shall be done 
accordingly. 

Patrick Henry." 

Thus Henry not only sounded the first note that pointed the 
way to American independence, but he and his brave Hanover 
Tndepents struck the first blow in resistance to British usurpation. 

Two days later, on the 6th of May, 1775, Governor Dunmore 
issued a second proclamation denouncing a "certain Patrick Hen- 
ry and a number of deluded followers" charging them with re- 
bellion, with dispatching "letters to divers parts of the country," 
and, "exciting people to join in these outrageous and rebellious 
practices," and with committing "other acts of violence and par- 
ticularly in extorting from his Majesty's receiver-general the 
sum of three hundred and thirty pounds under pretence of re- 
placing powder I thought proper to order from the magazine 

strictly charging all persons upon their allegiance, not to aid, 
abet or give countenance to the said Patrick Henry, or any other 
persons concerned in such unwarrantable combinations, but on 
the contrary to oppose them and their designs by every means; 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 27 

which designs must otherwise inevitably involve the whole coun- 
try in the most direful calamity, as they will call for vengeance 
of offended majesty, and the insulted laws, to be exerted here to 
vindicate the Constitutional authority of the Government." 

The threats and denunciations of the Governor only rendered 
Henry the more conspicuous and the more honorable. It is said 
he was in the act of departing for Congress when the intelligence 
from Williamsburg reached him. Having now accomplished 
his purpose he resumed his journey to Philadelphia. His jour- 
ney was that of the triumph of a conqueror. A large body of 
patriots accompanied him as far as the Potomac. From all di- 
rections messengers came bearing the thanks and applause of his 
assembled countrymen. So many were the messengers and mes- 
sages that the necessity of halting to read them converted the 
journey of one day into a triumph of many. 

Thus Henry not only uttered the first words that put the ball 
of the Revolution in motion, but he had also the distinction of 
leading the first military movement in Virginia in support of the 
same great cause. 

Poets have sung and orators have declaimed the rockbound 
coast to which the Puritan fathers came. Let poet's song and 
the orator's eulogy immortalize the Puritan's home and his con- 
tributions to progress and civilization. The Puritan deserves 
much. Let honor's wreath crown his brow. But compare Pur- 
itan and Cavalier in the great work each did in laying the deeper 
foundation of our greatness as a people, and who deserves the 
greater credit? We have just shown that it was in the Old Do- 
minion that the first voice was lifted to point the way to free- 
dom from England's tyranny. It was another son of the South 
that gave us the immortal Declaration of Independence. When 
the long and hard struggle for liberty came who but the great 
Washington led the Continentals to victory? When that war 
had seen its darkest days, when courage and endurance had 
wrenched victory from the jaws of the British lion at Yorktown, 
and hope and light and cheer greeted a new republic who was 
it that was placed at the helm to direct the Government in its 
starting career to greatness and prosperity? 



28 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Between the last gun of the Revolution and the first gun of 
the great War between the States seventy-two years intervened, 
and fifteen presidents had ruled. Nine of the fifteen presidents 
were Southerners, and fifty of the seventy-two years are to be 
credited to the South. To these facts add the long line of able 
jurists from the South headed by Chief Justice Marshal, and 
who can deny the dominating influence of the South in the early 
history of this Republic? 

As with the statesmen and jurists, so with the military leader- 
ship. The Cavalier is a born soldier. He has a genius for war. 
An army of Cavaliers would have charmed the heart of Napo- 
leon. In the war of 1812-14 who were the champion soldiers 
and who were the successful leaders? In the war with Mexico 
what section furnished the great bulk of enthusiastic soldiery? 

Begin with 1765 and see the ruling hand of the South shaping 
events. Later see Virginia bearding the British lion, and see 
all the colonies aflame with enthusiasm as the result. See this 
same guiding hand giving strength and symmetry to the Republic 
at home and respect abroad. Turn your eyes to the efforts of 
the South in extending the borders of this republic from the sea- 
board to great Central Valley, and beyond the mountains to the 
waters of the Pacific. Whose brain chiefly conceived and execut- 
ed the purchase of Louisiana? Through whose influence came the 
annexation of Texas? To what section are we chiefly indebted 
for the great Southwest? Whose liberal hand donated to the 
Union the great Northwest? 

Notwithstanding these facts bringing unfading luster to the 
Southern section of our country this section is the constant sub- 
ject of abuse. On the 24th day of August, 1909, Miss C. T. A. 
Duffy, of Atlanta, Ga., called attention of the editor of the At- 
lanta Georgian to an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which 
deserves all and more the editor has said in reply. We copy 
the editorial in full as well as the letter of Miss Duffy : 

"IS THE SOUTH EFFETE AND DECADENT? 

"The Encyclopaedia Britannica is a work which is found upon 
the shelves of numberless libraries in the South. On many topics 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 29 

of information it is absolutely fair and just. But in the name 
of a people whose contributions to American statesmanship and 
literature have challenged the world's profound respect, the 
Georgian most indignantly protests against the libelous and un- 
truthful strictures which this supposed repository of knowledge 
puts upon the South's intellectual activities. 

Our attention has been called to the article in question by the 
following letter, which explains itself: 
Editor Atlanta Georgian: 

Please turn to page 360 of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (New 
Twentieth Century Edition, subject, "American Literature — Con- 
ditions and Characteristics of American Literature." You will 
find this statement : 

"Since the Revolution days, when Virginia was the nurse 
of the statesmen, the few thinkers of Americans born south of 
Mason and Dixon's line — outnumbered by those belonging to the 
single state of Massachusetts — have commonly migrated to New 
York or Boston in search of a university training. In the world 
of letters, at least, the Southern states have shown reflected 
light ; nor is it too much to say that mainly by their connection 
with the North the Carolinas have been saved from sinking 
to the level of Mexico or the Antilles. Whether we look to In- 
dia or Louisiana, it would seem that the tropical sun takes the 
poetic fire out of the Anglo-Saxon veins, and the indolence which 
is the concomitant of despostism has the same benumbing effect. 
Like the Spartan marshaling his helots, the planter lounging 
among his slaves was made dead to art by a paralyzing sense 
known as his own superiority." 

Will the editor of the Georgian please advise in its columns 
if a statement like this in what is known as the Great Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica stands unrebuked by the Southern press? And 
speak frankly on the point as to the standing of the South as 
to its literature in comparison with the other sections of this 
country. 

Very truly, 
(Miss) C. T. A. Duffy, Atlanta, Ga., August 24, 1909. 



30 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

In reply to the question which is raised in the foregoing let- 
ter, the Georgian desires to say several things. 

First, by way of introduction, the writer of the article on 
American literature in the Encyclopaedia Britannica was dis- 
qualified alike by his prejudice and by his ignorance from hand- 
ling the grave topic which he undertook to discuss. 

And whatever may be the glitter of his name it remains that 
he has ignored the patent facts which are known and read of 
all men. 

Even the most superficial acquaintance with the bare sign- 
boards of American history will suffice to show that for the first 
80 years of our national life the South not only dominated the 
councils of government, but furnished leaders for every great 
forward movement, whether of politics or morals. 

Starting with the Revolution itself, the South furnished its 
pen in Thomas Jefferson, its tongue in Patrick Henry, and its 
sword in George Washington. 

The father of the Constitution was James Madison. 

By universal consent, the greatest of all the judges who have 
worn the ermine of the supreme bench was John Marshal. 

Whether in the forum or on the field, it is difficult to find 
the counterpart of rugged "Old Hickory." 

Of the illustrious trio of American statesmen — Calhoun, Clay 
and Webster, — two were from the South. 

The commander-in-chief of the American forces in the Mex- 
ican war was Winfield Scott. 

And when the great division came in 1861 it was to one whose 
childhood was cradled in the forest of Kentucky that the call 
from the dominant party in the republic was made^ — Abraham 
Lincoln. 

The man who succeeded him in the executive chair when the 
assassin's bullet struck him down was likewise from the South — 
Andrew Johnson. 

In the very forefront of modern commanders the severest of 
Northern critics have placed Robert E. Lee. 

Colonel Henderson, of the British army, in two superb vol- 
umes, has told the matchless story of the valley campaigns of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 31 

Stonewall Jackson ; and the work has become a text book in 
the military schools of England. 

The man who discovered anesthesia — a boon which mitigated 
the suffering of 40 centuries and proclaimed the era of modern 
surgery — was Crawford W. Long. 

Does this argue an effete civilization or justify that the South 
has shown by reflected light? 

If the South has really become effeminate, what a commentary 
is made by this humiliating fact upon the native American 
stock ? 

For in this section there has been less admixture with foreign 
elements than in any other; and the blood which ripples the 
veins of the South to-day is essentially the blood which settled 
the republic — the blood of Cowpens and Kings Mountain — the 
blood of Yorktown. 

And on this last historic field which the South furnished to the 
struggle for independence went down the flag of the country 
which is today represented in the world of books by the Encyclo- 
paedia Brittannica. 

The number and character of our educational nurseries will 
also dispel the slanderous accusation that it is mainly by our 
connection with the North that we have been saved from sink- 
ing to the level of decadent Spain. 

Preposterous ! 

In the effort to retrieve the consequences of war, the South 
has been severely handicapped ; but no one of candid mind can 
contemplate what the South has accomplished since Appomat- 
tox without marveling at the result. She furnished most of 
the battlefields of the great conflict. She lost her slave proper- 
ty, which aggregated millions of dollars. Besides paying her 
own war debt, she has also paid her proportionate share of the 
debt, which was contracted to subdue her. Yet what miracles of 
growth has she performed in four short decades ! 

Today it is universally conceded that the South is the most 
prosperous section of the whole republic — yet she has only skirt- 
ed the margin of her possibilities. 



32 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Nor is it true — to quote the fervid language of this grandilo- 
quent writer — that the tropical sun has taken the poetic fire 
out of the Anglo-Saxon veins. 

Sidney Lanier, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Timrod, Paul H. 
Hayne, John R. Thompson, Theodore O'Hara and James Bar- 
ron Hope — these give the lie to this libel. 

While the South has published no encyclopaedias — while she 
has never sought to exploit her literary wares — while she has 
been willing for New England to manufacture most of the books 
which have vaunted the achievements of American men of let- 
ters — she is nevertheless writing for the ages. 

The only American author whose books have been translated 
into seventeen different languages is Joel Chandler Harris. 

Audubon, the great naturalist — John and Joseph LeConte, 
styled the genii of the scientific heavens — Matthew F. Maury, 
the great geographer — these are some of the South's contribu- 
tions to the republic of letters. 

In the book market of the present day there are few writers 
who either in popularity or in merit precede John Fox, Mary 
Johnston, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Ellen Glasgow, James Lane 
Allen, Thomas Nelson Page and scores of others whose names 
are household words. 

The earliest inspirations of the genius of Mark Twain were 
caught from the dock scenes on the lower Mississippi. 

And the brilliant imagination of Winston Churchill was quick- 
ened in the sunny edge of the Land of Dixie. 

No, Miss Duffy, the Georgian is not willing for the article 
to which you have called attention to go unrebuked. It is 
wholly out of keeping with the spirit which should pervade a 
work of this kind. Moreover, it is slanderous to a people whose 
achievements, whether in the realm of intellect or of action, are 
such that they can dispense with flattery if only the sheer truth 
is told." 



CHAPTER II. 
THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. 

Right or wrong slavery is the one institutiion of the ages. Its 
Latin name, servus, correctly translated a slave, comes from 
servire, to preserve. The senn, or slaves were captured in war, 
and their lives were preserved on the condition of their becom- 
ing the absolute property of their masters. It is doubtless as old 
as war, and hence existed long before the historic age. 

It existed in ancient Egypt, Chaldea, Arabia and all the wide 
East. Poets, Philosophers, and Statesmen alike regarded it as 
regular and natural. Aristotle defended it on the ground of 
"diversity of races." Plato in his perfect state only desired that 
no Greek should become the slave of a Greek. 

Abraham, the father of the faithful, was a slave owner. With 
him God made a covenant for the redemption of mankind. Some 
of his slaves were "born" such. Others were "bought with 
money." Job, whom God called "his servant," had many slaves. 
When Christ came into this world he found slavery here. "The 
man without sin" rebuked all sin, yet he did not rebuke the 
relation between master and slave. Of a certain Centurion he 
said, "I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel." Yet 
that Centurion was a large slave-owner, Onesimus was an escaped 
slave of Philemon. Both the slave and his master were convert- 
ed under the preaching of Paul, Onesimus was sent back by 
Paul to his master. Martin Luther wrote : "He that says slav- 
ery is opposed to Christianity is a liar." The great French 
preacher, Bousett, near the end of the 17th century, wrote.. "To 
condemn slavery is to condemn the Holy Ghost.'" 

Must we condemn the Bible because it does not condemn slav- 
ery? All are slaves to a greater or less extent. Freedom itself 
is not unbridled liberty. It is restricted on all sides by the law, both 
civil and moral. If restriction of liberty is slavery, freedom it- 
self is a slave. The most civilised races need restriction, but in- 
finitely less than the least civilized. The best government for 
any people is that which is best adapted to their capacity. Judged 
by this test who can deny that the humane institution of slavery 



34 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

in the South was not the best government for the savages shipped 
from Africa to this country in the colonial days? 

When the colonies were first organized the whole civilized 
world advocated the institution of slavery. Georgia was the 
only colony of the original thirteen that excluded slavery in her 
organization. If salvery was right all share equally in the credit 
of establishing it in this country. If it was wrong all share 
equally in the wrong. 

The institution of slavery was the solace of Heaven in com- 
parison to the cruelty of the slavers. Apparently without remorse 
of conscience by Northern slavers vast numbers of helpless sav- 
ages were crowded into close quarters on these vessels, causing 
most intense suffering and a very large death rate. Bancroft 
estimates that prior to 1776 more than six million of negroes 
had been stolen from Africa, while Reynol estimates the num- 
ber to exceed nine million. It is estimated that at least three 
million of these came to America ; and that no less than a quar- 
ter of a million were thrown into the Atlantic on the voyage. 
The first state to legalize the slave trade was Massachusetts. 
The first State to build and equip a slaver was Massachusetts. 
The first slaver was christened "The Desire" — built and equipped 
at Marblehead in June 1637. Whatever significance was at- 
tached to the name, "The Desire," of this first slaver, it is certain 
that the slavers did more to render North America pro-slavery 
than all other forces combined. The other New England states 
followed in the wake of Massachusetts, for the slave trade was 
very profitable. Afore than two score slavers from Massachu- 
setts were on the bosom of the Atlantic at once. Not a slaver 
went from a Southern Colony. 

The New England States plead in justification of their course 
the fact that the savages they secured in Africa were already the 
slaves of the neighboring African tribes. But there was no ex- 
cuse. Besides they captured and enslaved peaceful Indians by 
the hundreds, and exchanged them for negroes in the Bermudas, 
Barbardoes and other islands. But if wrong, had the South no 
part in all these great wrongs? Yes, in these great wrongs all 
the colonies shared — in the South by purchasing these negroes, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 35 

thus encouraging the slave traffic. She plead in excuse that it 
was an act of mercy in as much as she found them at her door 
under most distressing circumstances ; and in as much as she 
gave them life instead of death ; comfort instead of suffering and 
distress ; and kindness instead of cruelty. But still it encouraged 
the slave trade. But again it was very difficult for sympathetic 
human nature to turn a deaf ear to their misfortunes. 
When the Declaration of Independence was written, slavery ex- 
isted in all the states. The Revolutionary War was fought to a 
finish by slave-holding states. When the Constitution was adopt- 
ed slavery existed in all the states except Massachusetts. And 
Massachusetts freed her slaves out of the regular order. The 
people had voted for a new state constitution. In that election 
the question of slavery was not an issue. The new Constitution 
contained this clause : "All men are horn free and equal." The 
same clause was also in the Virginia Constitution. 

Seven months after Massachusetts had adopted her Constitu- 
tion a slave known as Quaco Walker, of the town of Barre, 
Worcester County, left his master, Nathaniel Jennison, and hired 
himself to two brothers, John and Seth Caldwell. Jennison re- 
claimed and punished his slave. Qnaco Walker sued Jennison 
for damages. Jennison also sued the Caldwells. Quaco gained 
his suit, obtaining judgment for fifty pounds, damages. Jennison 
also gained his case, obtaining judgment for twenty-five pounds. 
Jennison appealed to the Supreme Court and lost. The Cald- 
wells also appealed to the same Court and gained their case. 

The Supreme Court based its decision on the clause : "All 
men are born free and equal." Only in this very peculiar man- 
ner did Massachusetts free her slaves before the adoption of the 
Constitution. This decision was rendered in April 1T83, one year 
and eight months after the battle of Yorktown. Hence the Rev- 
olutionary War was fought by slave-holding states without a sin- 
gle exception. 

In 1783 the right to hold slaves existed in all the States. In 
1790 it existed in all except Massachusetts. As late as 184U 
all were slave states except four, viz. : Massachusetts, Maine, 
Vermont, and Michigan. In 1850 there were sixteen free states 



36 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and fifteen slave-holding states. In 1860 the right to hold slaves 
existed in fifteen out of thirty-three states, one of these being 
New Jersey. 

Massachusetts, the first to abolish slavery owned slaves al- 
most, if not quite, a half century longer than Georgia, while 
New Jersey held slaves at least a full century longer than Geor- 
gia. 

When the Constitution was adopted it was said of the Gov- 
ernment, "It\s corner stone is slavery." Mr. Thorpe says, "The 
South had the Negro on its hands in 1860 and it has him to- 
day chiefly because of the law of climate. And the North did 
not have the Negro on its hands in 1860, as it does not have him 
to-day on account of the same law. If it be asked why in 1790 
and earlier slavery existed in New England, and in the Middle 
States in spite of the climate the answer is contained in the ques- 
tion : it existed in spite of the climate. But negro slavery at 
the North was not profitable excepting as at New York and 
other markets where slaves were bought and sold as commodi- 
ties. Whether the Northern conscience would have considered 
slavery a crime had slavery been profitable all the way up to 
the Canadian border, is a question which Southern men can 
answer perhaps more accurately than Northern men : for the 
climate which is necessary to the existence of the negro is the 
climate of the South rather than the North. If slavery was right 
at the South at any time it would have been at the North what- 
ever the climate of the North might be." (The Civil War from 
a Northern standpoint, p. 14). 

Mr. Thorpe evidently means that had similar conditions ex- 
isted in the North to those of the South the institution of slavery 
would have continued there as in the South. As late as 1831, 
as the conditions then were in the North the pro-slavery senti- 
ment was violently strong. In that year Abolitionists were mob- 
bed, assaulted, and threatened with tar and feathers in New 
York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and other 
states. As late as 1837 a Mr. Lovejoy was actually put to 
death by a mob of enraged citizens in the state of Illinois. Eleven 
years before this the abolition of slavery was actually proposed 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 37 

and earnestly debated in the Legislature of Virginia, and so 
near was its accomplishment that it lacked only one vote. It 
was defeated only on the ground of expediency. 

The love of liberty is innate and shrewd Northerners took 
advantage of the existence of slavery- in the South, making it 
the occasion of their own political advancement Appealing to 
this innate principle they finally inflamed the North against both 
the South and the Constitution, denouncing the South as the 
propagandists of slavery and the Constitutoin as "a compact 
with death and a league with hell." Is comment necessary here? 
No, fhe facts speak for themselves. 

In 1619 a few slaves were sold to private citizens of the Colony 
of Virginia. The colony tolerated slavery at that time but had 
not yet legalised it. We believe that Massachusetts was the 
first of all the colonies to legalize slavery. 

In 1860 there were 3,950,531 slaves in the South and 247,817 
free colored people. All the States at this time had more or 
less free negroes. Maryland had no less than 83,743 free blacks, 
only 3,247 less than her entire slave population. Virginia had 
no less than 58,042 free negroes and North Carolina no less than 
30,462. These were the three oldest slave states of the South. 
The all important fact is learned here that time and patience would 
have solved the slavery question zvithont that great shedding of 
blood that distinguished the Sixties. Alas ! for reckless, impa- 
tient, cruel, and selfish ambition ! The records made by its 
bloody hand mar every page of history. , 

The institution of slavery in the South was missionary in the 
truest and highest sense. Who can begin to estimate the bene- 
fits slavery conferred on the degraded savages brought by 
Northern slavers from the wilds of Africa, and sold to the South- 
ern planter! Compare these savages with the negroes of the 
South, and consider the contrast. Brought into immediate con- 
tact with the best type of Christian civilization, their transforma- 
tion was wonderful — almost magical. They found here the best 
possible conditions for their wants. They were helpless. They 
were ignorant. Hence they were most dependent. They found 
here good homes, comfortable beds, warm clothing— an abund- 



38 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ance of nourishing food, and shelter from the storm. Child- 
hke in disposition and their wants, their troubles were of short 
duration. Their cares, like those of childhood were few. Freed 
from the heartless mercenaries of the slavers their environments 
soon rendered them contented and happy. Such was their trans- 
formation and such was their intelligence that the North deemed 
them worthy of the high trust of the ballot after the war. 

In Effingham County, Georgia, there lived before the war a 
large slave-holder. Thomas Elkins, a true representative of that 
class. Among his slaves were two old African chiefs. They 
frequently expressed a desire to return to their native haunts in 
Africa. Mr. Elkins said to them, "I will free you and send you 
back home to Africa." He named the day when he and the 
negroes would go to Augusta, where he expected to arrange for 
their safe transportation back to Africa. A few days before the 
appointed time the two old chiefs came to Mr. Elkins and said, 
"Wc no zvant to go back to Africa. We ivant to stay ivith you." 

If tribal African chiefs who had been surprised and enslaved 
by other tribal chiefs and sold to New England slave-dealers, who 
in turn sold them in the South, were so soon reconciled and 
contented what shall be said of the contentment of the negroes 
born and raised here in the atmosphere of kindly and congenial 
spirits? WitJiont doubt, if wc c.vcept children, they were the 
happiest class of people in all the states, — happiest because they 
had the fewest cores and fezvest perplexities. It is life's cares 
and perplexities that render life miserable. Thousands of old 
ex-slaves now long for the happy days of ante-l)ellum times. 

As one of the many thousands of instances of pleasant mem- 
ories we insert this: 

"Columbus. Ga., ^lay •?!), 1913. 
"Editor Christian Index : 

"I am sending you a letter, which I think favorably illustrates 
the kindly feeling which the 'old time Negro' cherishes for Chris- 
tian services rendered them by the whites in the long ago. The 
letter which follows just as it was written, bears its own sweet 
message of gratitude from one who is a complete stranger tO' 
me. 

"Fraternally yours, 

A. E. Williams." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 39 

"Mr. A. E. Williams, Columbus, Ga. 

"Dear Sir : — I saw the death of your dear father in the Macon 
Telegraph. After reading it I thought of my boyhood days. I am 
a colored man and was born in South Carolina in 1855, and lived 
in Greenville, S. C, until I was fifteen years old. I remember your 
uncle. Dr. Williams, and I heard him preach several times. Drs. 
William, Boyce, Manly and Broadus used to preach to colored 
people in the afternoon in the white churches. 

"I remember Dr. Williams preached once from the text, "Am 
I my brother's keeper?" 

"I have a younger brother named for Dr. Manly, and a son 
for Dr. Broadus. My wife has a brother named for Dr. Wil- 
liams. I have some of all their works. 

"I suffer with you in the death of your dear father. 

"Your humble servant, 

"M. P. Mbore, 
"Dawson, Ga." 

The corn-shuckings were annual occasions of good cheer and 
abounding pleasure to them>. In the fall of each year the ripe corn 
was gathered in the shuck and piled in a huge heap along the side 
of a crib open full length at the top. The planter would say to 
his neo-roes, "We will now have an old fashioned corn-shucking." 
at the same time designating the night on which it was to occur. 
That was enough. The news would spread from plantation to 
plantation with amazing rapidity. On that night from all quarters 
would come gay bands of active negroes, and surround that pile 
of corn. A few of their leaders, having strong lungs, would 
mount the pile, and, rushing from one end to the other, would 
lead in their own peculiar songs, while the hundreds of the busy 
shuckers would join in the loud glad chorus. The African is a 
born singer. His singing is as distinctively racial as that of the 
American Indian. The melody of his voice is adapted to all 
grades of the scale. On clear nights their "Corn Songs" were, 
at times, heard for miles. Thus to the gala step of the liveliest 
of songs, the last "nubbin" was soon in the crib. 

The corn-feast followed in quick order, the stripping of the corn 
of shucks. Now forming in ranks the shuckers, with exultant 
spirits and best of humor, marched to the "big house," still sing- 
ing as if they never tired of song. There they found a long im- 



40 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

pormptu table loaded with savory meats of various kinds, and 
delicacies — all fit for a king. 

The corn-toting followed the feasting. This was to the negroes 
the richest sport, perhaps, of the corn-shucking season. It was now 
that the negroes ranked the planter and were themselves the lords 
of the situation. It has been said that the word "tote" originated 
among the negroes of the South. Its distinctive meaning is to carry 
or to bear in your hands. The first fun in this sport was the 
toting of the master of the "big house." If he should hide out 
they had the right, by a common law of their own, to search every 
nook, closet and corner in that house. And when they had found 
him their shouts of triumph, in loudest glee, announced the 
fact. The submissive master generally rode astride the should- 
ers of some strong dusky hero who carried him around the 
"big house" and then through it, followed by a great throng of 
dusky songsters. This was repeated as often as desired. After 
the master all the other white males considered large enough were 
treated in the same way. Then came the time for the leading 
negroes of the place to be toted. Now came the greatest fun 
of all to them. When a large strong buck negro was tackled 
he generally felt disposed to show his muscle. Being well in 
the grasp of as many negroes as could lay hands on him, he 
would draw himself up, and then with all his might straighten 
himself, often with the result of bringing all to the ground. 
When the subject had exhausted his strength he was borne with 
ease and, like all the others, he too was carried through the 
"big house" and around it to their full content. 

The corn-dance followed the toting sport. It was a dance pe- 
culiar to the Southern slaves, and most interesting. Perhaps no 
dance, not even that of the American Indian, exceeded it in inter- 
est. Originating with the Southern negroes, it died out with their 
freedom. The scene of the dance was generally out doors on firm 
smooth ground. Their only instrument of music was the fiddle, 
accompanied by the clapping of hands and patting on the thigh 
with the hands, keeping time with the music of the fiddle. Many 
of them could strike their heels together three times while off 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 41 

the ground. These were the expert dancers — scientific from 
their standpoint. The graceful ease with which the dusky he- 
roes would now face the dusky maids and then lead them gal- 
lantly through the intricacies of the dance was par-excellence. 
Often during the dance the participants would chant the tune 
to the music of the fiddle and the p'attings and clappings of the 
hands. Thus the dance would continue till the wee hours of 
the night. 

Perhaps no occasion in all the history of the South, or of the 
entire nation, was so novel, so unique, and so full of inspiring 
interest as that of the Corn-shucking season. It was the occa- 
sion of the highest enjoyment and of unbounded enthusiasm to 
the negro. Negroes have been known to walk ten miles to at- 
tend one of these com-shuckings. How do these facts compare 
with the fictions of Uncle Tom's Cabin? 

In 1769, eighteen years before the framing of the Federal Con- 
stitution, Virginia prohibited the further importation of slaves. 
In 1827 there were one hundred and six anti-slavery societies 
in the South against twenty-four in the North. The Southern 
Societies had 5,150 members, while the Northern had only 920. 
(Genius Universal Emancipation, Lundy). Between 1824 and 
1826 about 2,000 slaves were freed in North Carolina. In 1831 
the Virginia Legislature was equally divided on a bill for the 
gradual emancipation of slaves. It was lost only by the vote 
of the chairman. 

"The Liberator," was established by Wm. Lloyd Garrison of 
Boston in 1831. It was the organ of unconditional alSblitionism. 
Like Uncle Tom's Cabin, it reasoned from exaggerated false state- 
ments. Yet men and women believed its assertions to be the literal 
truth. As a result it was not long before sixty-one women and 
children were murdered in Southampton, Virginia. This was the 
death knell to the one hundred and six anti-slave societies in 
the South. 

It zvas ever thus. The South was never left unmolested to con- 
trol her own institutions. Here was the "Old Dominion" in 
good faith trying to adopt measures for gradual emancipation. 



42 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

All her benevolent plans were thwarted by the brutal murder of 
her women and children. Mr. Seward, referring to what had 
been done for Kansas, said, "And we will invade your States." 
It was murder and threats that enraged the South. Mr. Garri- 
son believed "Slavery could be abolished only by the dissolution 
of the Union," yet he advocated the abolition of slavery. There- 
fore he believed in the Constitutional right of Secession. He 
also believed the Constitution protected slavery. He therefore 
denounced the Constitution as "a compact with death and a 
league with hell." 

Mr. Thorpe says, "The South had the Negro in 1860, and has 
him now." That is not mere idle speech. When the crisis came 
in 1860, the question of questions to the people of the South was, 
"What shall we do with the negro?" He is on our hands. Our 
relations, it is true, are those of the master and the slave, but 
they are also most tender and binding. He has our deepest sym- 
pathies. Shall we agree to transport him to some strange land? 
We have not the heart for this. It will mean hardships of the 
deepest kind for him and his people ; and in most cases, doubt- 
less, starvation. Our relations to the negro are life-long, and 
as tender as long. 

Shall we free him in our midst ? The answer is quick : He 
is ignorant, and helpless, and penniless, and dependent. Be- 
sides many slaves are but recently from the wilds of Africa. Will 
our wives and daughters be safe in their midst? Very few 
people of the North realized the gravity of the most serious 
and the deepest of questions submitted to the South by the is- 
sues of 18G0. The question of dollars and cents weighed little 
indeed beside the perplexity of the question involving their con- 
sideration for the welfare and the comfort of the poor African 
slaves who had so long been the subjects of their care and pro- 
tection. 

Therefore the question of transportation or immediate free- 
dom was dismissed. But there was yet a third way of meet- 
ing the issues, viz : that of secession. This was a Constitu- 
tional right the people of the South not in the least doubted. 
It was a right the exercise of which the New England States 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 43 

had first threatened; and was then acquiesced in by all the 
States. Southerners thought in this way they would free the 
consience of the North of the responsibility of supporting an 
institution they believed to be wrong. They were encouraged 
in this belief by leading Northern papers that declared the Con- 
stitutional right of secession. The world knotvs the result. 

Mr. Thorpe (Civil War from a Northern standpoint, p. 14) 
says, "Gradually a conviction grew at the North that slavery 
was wrong, and gradually slavery disappeared." And so did 
the Negro. 

The census of 1860 shows that the South had 247,817 free 
negroes and the North in all her domain had only 268,817 — a 
difference of 21,000. Where were all the negroes of the North, 
during almost two full centuries of slavery? They were not 
eliminated by the rigors of the climate. For then their fate 
would have been the theme of poets, philosophers and philan- 
thropists. They were not liberated and endowed, and then 
transported to Hayti or some other delightful climate. For 
then the press of the North and the world would have abounded 
with the praise of Northern slave-holders as true liberators in- 
deed. But where were all those multiplied negroes? Shall we 
conclude they were on Southern plantations in exchange for 
Southern gold? This will destroy the beautiful picture drawn 
by Mr. Thorpe, and make the North as culpable for the zvrong 
of slavery as was the South. Not only that, it will add another 
wrong of the North, — the waging of a war of coercion against 
the South for a sin equally common to both sections. Is ship- 
ping a negro to the South and selling him to a slaveholder, and 
then pocketing the money and returning to the North, freeing 
that negro? Mr. Thorpe might have spoken more accurately 
if he had said, "Gradually a conviction grew at the North that 
slavery was not a paying institution, and gradually the Northern 
slaves were exchanged for Southern gold." 

There were 3, 950, 531 slaves in the South during the war. Their 
young masters, and older masters up to sixty years of age, were 
pi'-Toqf- px-cli^civf^h- in thp service. They confidently committed 
their wives r^nd daughters to the keeping of these blacks. With 



44 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

what result? The world knows the Southern heroes did not 
misplace their confidence. Was ever slavery like this? May 
it not have been slavery merely in name? Was it not a mere 
family institution with the binding ties of the tender relationship 
of the family? It is certain the world has never witnessed 
such fidelity among other people under similar circumstances. 
All accusations of cruelty on the part of the Southern whites, 
to be effective, must first overcome this glorious fidelity of the 
negro. It was this fidelity that made Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamation a failure. But for this fidelity that proclama- 
tion would have been most barbarous — perhaps the greatest dis- 
grace in the history of war. Think of it, if these nearly four 
millions of negroes had been encouraged by that proclamation 
to murder the women and children of the South hozv fearful 
would have been the disgrace visited upon the North. 

Southern heroes of the late war have in their hearts a warm 
place for the old ex-slaves. They will transmit their love and 
admiration for these old darkies to their children and children's 
children. So long as Southern chivalry shall live it will honor 
the fidelity of the Southern slaves. Southern men and South- 
ern women should erect in some important center in memory 
of the fidelity of their slaves a monument of marble with a base 
as broad as the broadest, and a column as tall as the tallest, and 
write Fidelity on its four sides. 

On the 26th day of September, 1861, the people of the North 
in accordance with a proclamation of the President of the United 
States met to observe a day of "public prayer, humiliation and 
fasting." We are told by the writer of the "Civil War Fifty 
Years Ago To-Day" tliat "nearly every minister chose a dif- 
ferent text bearing on slavery or on the war. All who did so 
denounced slavery as bitterly as it had never before been de- 
nounced by the Abolitionists of New England a decade before. 
Taken together these utterances showed how earnestly the North- 
ern people, as a whole, believed that the war was being fought 
for the freeing of slaves, and for that alone — a view that 
had not been held by the whole people of the North when the 
war began. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 45 

"Never before had all ministers and teachers of rehsrion, 
of all denominations" — in the words of Lincoln's proclamation^ 
been called upon to express their views on a given day ; never 
before had such a concerted expression of opinion gone up from 
them. 

"Had some of the members of Congress who had voted for 
this fast day, been able to foresee these deep combined utter- 
ances on a subject that the most adroit politicians of the North 
had sought to keep in the background in the open months of the 
war, there is little question that they would not have asked the 
President to give the ministers of the North an opportunity col- 
lectively to express themselves on the great issue of the day." 
(italics ours). 

Lincoln had proclaimed that the war was not waged to free 
the negro. This was done to save the border states to the 
Union. Often during the war did the Southern soldiers hear 
from the lips of prisoners from the border States, "If we thought 
we were fighting to free the negro we would not fire another 
gun." This proclamation of Lincoln was the result of the de- 
feat of Bull Run, and "a unanimous vote of Congress asking 
Lincoln to appoint a national fast day." The ministers of the 
Gospel, unlike "adroit politicians," had no better sense than to 
openly and boldly declare the issue as the North regarded it, 
viz : that the war zvas ivaged to free the negro. 

This fact renders the Southern negro's fidelity to his sacred 
trust the more praiseworthy ; and declares most emphatically 
how little the North knew of the true nature of Southern slavery. 
Since the war reliable testimony has been received from the 
lips of the old negroes that Northern spies were often, during 
the 60's in their midst, attempting to influence their minds 
against their masters in the field of war, but to no avail. 

The South had led in forbiding the slave trade. Hence 
slavery was cut off from all increase except that of birth. On 
the other hand thousands of foreignors were flocking to this 
country and settling in the North and West. Already at this 
time the North outnumbered the South in population by nearly 
4,000,000 inhabitants. The natural increase of the Northern 



46 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

population added to that of the thousands of foreigners annually 
flocking to this country proclaimed the doom of slavery. In 
1850 the State of CaHfornia was admitted with a Constitution 
forbiding slavery. Mr. Thorpe says, "It was not forbidden 
because the Californians pitied or loved the negro, or because 
they wished to attack slavery in the South, or to interfere with 
slavery in anyway ; slavery was forbidden because the men who 
lived there and who were laboring in the mines, or elsewhere, 
refused to put themselves in competition with slave labor '' 

Thus every interest in the North and West antagonized slav- 
ery. In spite of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court de- 
cisions, slavery was being confined to limits of the then slave- 
holding states. If the South had been left undisturbed to de- 
cide for herself, her sober thought would have solved the ques- 
tion of slavery within her borders by some wise and gradual 
porcess that would have been bloodless, and yet most ef- 
fective. In seceding did not the South, by her own act, limit 
the borders of slavery? Would she have been less wise if fi- 
nally left unmolested by threats and murders and insurrections? 

The first step to abolish slavery under the present Constitu- 
tion was made as early as the 12th of February, 1T90, some- 
what less than twelve months after the inauguration of Wash- 
ington. It was in the form of a petition to Congress, headed 
hy the eminent and venerable Dr. Franklin. Its object was the 
ultimate abolition of slavery in the States. To this petition the 
House of Representatives replied by resolution as follows : 

"That Congress has no authority to interfere with the eman- 
cipation of slaves, or with the treatment of them within any of 
the States ; it remaining with the several States alone to pro- 
vide any regulations therein, which humanity and true policy may 
require." 

This was the first Congress under the present Constitution. 
All its members were well informed as to its true meaning, 
some of them having taken an active part in framing it This 
exposition of the Constitution by this enlightened Congress must 
have been the true one. It declared the utter want of Con- 
gressional jurisdiction on the subject. There was at this time 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 47 

no geographical line between the slave States and the free. In 
fact'^only one state, Massachusetts, up to this time excluded slav- 
ery. Hence this decision of Congress was not sectional. 

The South took the lead in the prohibition of the slave trade. 
It was chartered by Queen Elizabeth and encouraged by her 
successors to the Crown, against the protest of the Southern 
Colonies. It continued to exist down to the American Revo- 
lution. Virginia was the first of all the Colonies to raise her 
voice in protest. She protested no less than twenty-three 
times. Thomas Jefiferson called it "this piratical warfare, the 
opprobrium of infidel powers " On the 2nd of June, 1770, the 
House of Burgesses and a number of merchants in the capi- 
tal of \^irginia, met and resolved that they would not "pur- 
chase any slave or slaves that may be imported by others 
after the 1st day of November next, lUiless the same have 
been twelve months on the Continent." On the 1st of April. 
1772, Virginia pronounced the slave trade "a calamity of a 

most alarming nature, "a trade of great inhumanity." 

On the 5th of October, 1778, Virginia forbade the further im- 
portation of slaves "under a penalty of 1,000 pounds from the 
seller and 500 pounds from the buyer and freedom to the slave." 
This was "the first example of an attempt by a legislative en- 
actment to destroy the slave trade." Georgia was the first 
state in the American Union to incorporate its prohibition in 
her organic law. The South did all this and more in spite of 
the fact that the law and climate and agricultural pursuits en- 
couraged the continuance of the traffic. 

The North took the lead in sustaining the slave trade, it being 
carried on almost exclusively by New England merchants and 
Northern ships— this too in spite of the fact that the law and 
climate together with naval and manufacturing interests tended 
to exclude slavery from their borders — in spite of the fact that 
an unparalleled cruelty to the negroes existed in their transporta- 
tion. 

The first introduction of slavery into sectional controversy 
was on the occasion of the admission of Missouri as a State 
into the Union in 1819-20. It was the result of the proviso 



48 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

prohibiting slavery within its limits. The debate was violent. 
It was vehement. Representatives from the North threatened the 
disruption of the Union. It was continued into the next ses- 
sion. The South pleaded in vain that the number of slaves 
would not and could not be increased by their removal into this 
State; in vain her representation showed most conclusively that 
it was unconstitutional to exclude them. It is true the Dred 
Scott decision had not yet been rendered, but the plain terms 
of the Constitution spoke with no uncertainty of meaning. The 
equality of the States and the equal rights of the States were 
then admitted by all. These facts were eloquent in defence of 
the right to admit slaves into the State. But in addition no 
language of the Constitution, however, strong could exceed in 
force that of the silence of that instrument on the subject, since 
Congress could do nothing not expressly granted. 

At this time there were twenty-two states in the Union, eleven 
Northern and eleven Southern. The States were, therefore equal- 
ly represented in the Senate. No member from the South in 
either house voted for the restricting proviso. On the adoption 
of the Compromise the vote in the Senate stood 34 yeas to 10 
nays — the nays consisting of two from the North and eight from 
the South. In the House the vote was 143 yeas to 43 nays, 
39 Southern members voting yea and 5 Northern members vot- 
ing nay. Every Southern man voting yea on this question did 
it through policy in a spirit of patriotism with the hope of quiet- 
ing the slavery question as to the territories and saving the Un- 
ion. Every Southern man voting against the Compromise did 
so because he deemed it unconstitutional. These were right in 
principle and in policy. Policy is never justified in abandoning 
principle. Had the friends of the Constitution in that Con- 
gress at that time denounced policy and clung to the Consti- 
tution doubtless the great war of the Sixties would have been 
averted. 

Who made a sacrifice for the sake of the Union in this Com- 
promise? It was the South. Who made sacrifices all the time 
for the sake of the Union? The answer is ever the same It 
was the South. Who erred in making all these sacrifices? // 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 49 

was the South. Every sacrifice she made invited new agg-res- 
sions. Every new aggression gained confidence from previous 
success till the North demanded all the rights of the South un- 
der the Constitution ; and when now the South finally refused 
to make further concession the North, in self-confidence, because 
of her growth, her strength and advantage of position deter- 
mined to enforce her demands and compel the South's submis- 
sion. 

When the States were eleven to eleven the South could 
have demanded all her rights under the Constitution and 
could have secured them without peril. The Government was 
then in the hands of an administration that knew the Con- 
stitution and was true to its dictates. The advantages were 
all with the South. Had there been secession it would have 
been the North that seceded, and the South would have been 
left in possession of the Government. Nor would she have 
coerced the North even had her population exceeded that of 
the North by many millions? As already intimated the South 
made her great mistake in 1819-20, when she compromised her 
rights, and in doing so compromised the Constitution. Her 
safety lay in the .strict enforcement of the Constitution In 
yielding her rights under the Constitution for the sake of the 
saving the Union she opened the floodgate for her own ruin. 
That mistake cost her the flower of her chivalry, and billions 
of her property to say nothing of the privations and sufferings 
and sorrows it brought to her people at home and in the field. 

It was just prior to this unfortunate compromise that slavery 
was injected into politics. It was the act of the North. Its insidious 
entrance was on the plea that the South had no right to carry 
slaves into the territories, the common property of all the States. 
To sustain this position its advocates were forced to deny that sla- 
ery was property. The slave trade had enriched the North, 
and yet slavery was not property! The North had exchanged 
the slaves for Southern gold and yet slavery was not property! 
This denial of the right of the South was the denial of the equaHty 
of the States in the Union. But what cared the political ben- 
eficiaries of the North for that? Here was one of the first 



50 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

muttering-s of the coming war storms that burst upon this coun- 
try witli such terrific fury in the dark Sixties. If slavery was 
not property the North was deceived for more than a century 
and a half. But the North was not deceived. If any people 
know what property is, it is the North. 

All the North accept Hamilton as high authority. Hear him : 
"The Federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great pro- 
priety on the case of our slaves, when it viev/s them in the mixed 
character of persons and property. This is in fact, their char- 
acter bestowed upon them by the laws xmder which we live." 
(The Federalist No. 53, Dawson's Edition, p. 379). All know^ 
the Con.stitution recognizes slavery as property. The whole 
world regards labor and service as money. The services of 
some men are valued as high as $50,000 a year. 

We will now let a distinguished son of Massachusetts speak. 
It is no less than Chas. Francis .A.dams, the head of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society — the great-grandson of the first 
Adams, and the grandson of the second Adams. He says, "By 
the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott 
it would seem that the South had won at every point; it had 
demanded all for slavery and had at last received it from the 
Suprem- judicial tribunal of the land. To interefere with slav- 
ery was now. therefore, to violate the Supreme law; the Con- 
stitution was pronounced as a pro-slavery instrument, and those 
who advocated the limitation of slavery, were guilty of uncon- 
stitutional acts ; the South in upholding slavery, was, so it now 
beUeved, adhering to the original conception of Constitutional 
government in America ; the South embodied the true national 
idea, it was the North that was guilty of violating the principles 
of the Union. Thus the decision put the burden of good be- 
havior upon the North, for the South had always claimed what 
the Court had now declared was the supreme law of the land. 

"But all the North was not hostile to slavery ; indeed down to 
the day of Abraham Lincoln's election as president no political 
party hostile to slavery can be said to have embodied the opinions 
of the North." 

"The North did not love the negro. Even the people of the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 51 

old free States discriminated against him. New York allowed 
him to vote, but under a contingency which reinforced by public 
opinions kept all but a few negroes from the polls. In 1860 
when the Union consisted of thirty-three States of which eigh- 
teen were free States, twenty-seven State Constitutions elimi- 
nated the negro from citizenship. The free States tolerated the 
free negro but refused to treat him as a citizen ; even in New 
England no one proposed electing a negro to the humblest of- 
fice. The new free States of the West, beginning with Ohio 
and ending with California, Minnesota and Oregon, refused to 
make the negro a citizen when they prohibited slavery in their 
Constitutions. In a direct vote, could one have been cast through- 
out the North on the day Lincoln was elected president, a prop- 
osition to abolish slavery in the United States would have been 
defeated. The majority of the people of the North, in 18G0. look- 
ed upon slavery as an established institution, objectionable, it is 
true, but yet established. They considered it distinctly a South- 
ern institution, and as such wholly an afl'air of the South except 
as an effort might be made to extend slavery into the new States 
and Territories; and even on this point public opinion in the 
North was divided."' 

Hovv- can Mr. Adams exhonorate Lincoln, whose platform 
was clearly in violation of the above and hence in violation of 
the Constitution? How can the North justify negro suffrage 
in the South when "the free States tolerated the free negro but 
refused to treat him as a citizen^" How could any law-abiding 
citizen of the North oppose "An extension of slavery into the 
New States and Territories" when "those who advocated the 
limitation of slavery were guilty of unconstitutional acts?" Upon 
what just ground could the North advocate the coercion of the 
South when the South was "adhering to the original conception 
of Constitutional government in America?" On what just grounds 
could the South be called "revolutionists" and "traitors" and 
"rebels" when "the South embodied the true national idea," and 
when "it was the North that was guilty of violating the principles 
of the Union?" 



52 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

THE MISTAKE OF THE SLAVE STATES. 
We place this in Italics, although we have twice alluded to 
it in this chapter. It is because we would give it special at- 
tention and emphasis. That mistake was the first Compromise 
of the Constitution — the Missouri Compromise. To the bill for 
the admission of this State had been attached a proviso pro- 
hibiting slavery within her borders. This called forth violent, 
yea, vehement discussion to which we have referred. The bill 
with the proviso finally passed the House of Representatives by 
an exclusively sectional vote, no Southern member voting for it. 
But it was defeated in the Senate. 

This was followed by what is known as the celebrated Mis- 
souri Compromise ; namely, The admission of Missouri as a slave 
State, and forever excluding slavery north of 36 degrees, 30 
minutes north latitude. This was the first break in the compact 
between the States. And roe call the zvorld to zvitness that it zvas 
m,ade to pacify the North. As when some mighty dam springs 
a leak which, unchecked, grows in dimensions and strength un- 
til the whole structure is swept away, and wide ruin follows in 
the wake of the great devastating flood, so this first break in 
the Constitution added other and still other demands until the 
whole Constitutional fabric gave way and vast destruction and 
bloodshed and death covered the entire South. 

Wc close this chapter with just one question : How could 
the North, in the face of these facts, justly charge the South with 
treason and rebellion, and upon such charge claim the right to 
•wage a just war? 



CHAPTER HI. 

THE TWO COMPACTS. 

THE TWO FEDERATIONS. 

The Declaration of Independence was followed, in less than a 
year, by the Confederation, styled "The Confederation and the 
Perpetual Union between the States." They had declared 
themselves free, separate, independent and sovereign states. As 
such they formed a compact for their common defense. Under 
this compact they successfully fought the War of the Revolu- 
tion. Under it they won their recognition from Great Britain 
as sovereign and independent states. Their compact declares 
that "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independ- 
ence, and every power jurisdiction, and right which is not in the 
Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Con- 
gress assembled." How complete this retaining clause of the 
sovereignty, freedom and independence of the States ! It is as 
complete as words can make it. It is as incapable of being mis- 
construed as it is emphatic. It is as emphatic as complete. The 
frarners of the Constitution were determined that it should be 
known they had surrendered nothing except ivhat they had ex- 
pressly delegated to their creature and agent ; and that the world 
should know that Congress possessed only delegated powers. Yet 
this most complete, this strongest, this most emphatic, this clear- 
est of declarations is denied by Francis Newton Thorpe m these 
words : "It was National feeling that won the Revolution, not 
State feeling; National feeling that sustained Congress under 
the Confederation, not State feeling ; National feeling that forced 
unwilling States to respond and make appearance in the Federal 
Convention of 1787 that framed the Constitution." (Thorpe, 
p. 163.) By national feeling he means centralised feeling. Ex- 
cept Mr. Thori)e, all people who can understand the simplest 
words oi the purest English, knozv better. 

Congress was the United States assembled. It exercised all 
the powers delegated to it by the States and not the powers 
delegated by a nation. It exercised all the delegated executive 
powers as well. For bear in mind that all the executive powers 



54 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

were delegated. Strip the United States of its delegated powers, 
and it will be as limp as an unstarched rag, It had the dele- 
gated power to create courts, having jurisdiction in admiralty 
and maritime cases, and in cases of disputes between two or more 
states. Perhaps the exercise of these high delegated functions 
deceived Mr. Thorpe. In the discharge of all its duties it repre- 
sented the Staets as equal, free and independent sovereignties. 
As further evidence each State had but one vote on any question. 
If the States did not retain their sovereignty let Mr. Thorpe, or 
any centralist, tell why the States voted as sStates, and cast but 
one vote as a State. Let also this question be answered. Why 
were the United States limited in their pozver to delegated au- 
thority f Let also this question find answer : By zvhom, or by 
zvhat, zvere the United States thus limited in pozjoerf 

As Congress constituted the three departments of government, 
and could not be in perpetual session, the general management of 
affairs, during the recess, was entrusted to a committee of one 
delegate from each State, known as the "Committee of the 
States." Why was each State represented in this committee? 
Does not the answer spell State Sovereignty f 

The first Confederation proving inadequate, it was proposed 
that Commissioners from all the States should meet in Annapolis 
in September, 178G to reorganize the Government. Only five 
States (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and 
Virginia) were represented. They refused to act, but declared it 
to be their unanimous conviction "that Congress should call a 
convention of the several States to meet in Philadelphia on the 
second Monday of May, 1787, to take in consideration the situa- 
tion of the United States, to devise such further provisions as 
shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the 
P'ederal Government adequate to the exegencies of the Union, and 
to report such an act for that purpose to the United States Con- 
gress assembled, as when agreed to by them, and afterward con- 
firmed by the Legislature of every State, will effectually provide 
for the same." 

On the 21st day of February, 1787, Congress, by resolution, 
complied with the suggestion of the Annapolis Convention, de- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 55 

daring it their belief that a convention of delegates from all the 
States should meet in Philadelphia, on the second Monday in 
May next, "for the sole and express purpose of revising the 
articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress, and the 
several Legislatures, such alterations and provisions therein as 
shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, 
render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the 
Government, and to the preservation of the Union." (lalics ours.) 

The resolutions, both of Congress and the A.nnapolis Conven- 
tion clearly define the powers it was thought the States should 
confer upon the delegates, viz : 'To revise the articles of Con- 
federation so as to render them adequate for the purposes of the 
Union. In the next place they were to report their deliberations 
to both the Congress and to the several legislatures of the States — 
to the Congress of the States and to the Legislatures of the 
States. 

All the States except Rhode Island immediately appointed 
delegates, and properly instructed them as the resolutions sug- 
gested. If Congress constituted a centralized government, and 
not a government of States, why was not Rhode Island com- 
pelled to send delegates to that Convention? Every fact, how- 
ever testifies to state sovereignty. 

From the character of the Congress, composed of State units, 
from the character of these resolutions, from the character of 
the instructions each state gave its own delegation, from the fact 
that each delegation represented its own state, it is self-ezident 
that these several delegations did not represent the United States 
in mass — to say nothing of Rhode Island's being left out. When 
centralists make such a claim they confess their poverty of sus- 
taining facts. Yea, more, they confess their disregard for the 
plain meaning of the fact that each delegation represented its 
own state. If each delegation represented its own state it did not 
represent the states en mass. This is beyond honest contradiction. 

It is also evident that the object was not to organise a new 
government, but to "amend," "To rernse," and "to report such 
alterations and provisions as agreed upon." 

It is also evident that the term Federal Constitution, used for 



56 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the first time in this first Confederation, is freely appHed to that 
system of government established in 1777-78. It is universally 
admitted that this first Confederation was a league, a compact 
between the States, each of which expressly retained its sov- 
ereignty and independence. Therefore it must also be so con- 
strued when used in the second or amended Constitution. In 
other words the term ''Federal Constitution" has the same mean- 
ing in both Confederations. 

It is also evident that the Convention of 3 787 had no function 
except to "devise, deliberate, discuss, enact, report and recom- 
mend." 

On the day appointed that historic Convention assembled. 
Luther Martin was an efficient delegate from Maryland. In his 
report to the Legislature of his State he said "there were a few 
in the Convention who would abolish all State lines, and establish 
a general Government of the States." 

"There was a second party in the Convention who, whik op- 
posing all monarchial tendencies, favored giving their own States 
undue power and influence in the Government." 

"There was a third party nearly equal to the other two com- 
bined. These were truly Federal or Republican. They believed 
in Federal equality ; and that the object of the Convention was 
to take their present Federal system as a basis of their proceed- 
ings, and to give such additional powers as experience had shown 
to be necessary." We see here why the fiction, Pious Fraud, was 
necessary. 

It was the larger States that wished to establish a numerical 
basis of representation in Congress. These were Virginia, North 
Carolina, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In population they 
exceeded all the other nine States combined but only four- 
thirteenths of the voting strength. The smalled States had been 
instructed through their delegates to insist upon equality in the 
Union. Hence they demanded absolute equality and obtained it. 
Without equality there could be no Union. This was the most 
troublesome question before the Convention. At times it seemed 
irreconciliable. 

By way of parenthesis, this fact, the equality of the States, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 57 

shows Lincolns territorial doctrine unconstitutional, independent- 
ly of the Dred Scott decision. 

How was this troublesome question settled? Only by a com- 
promise, which provided that in the Federal Legislature, the 
House, representation of the States should be in proportion to 
their numbers ; and in the Senate the States should have equal 
representation. Hence to-day New York has no more representa- 
tives in the Senate than the smallest State in the Union — a fact 
which is a standing ivitness to the equality of the States. 

Early in the Convention Mr. Randolph introduced the follow- 
ing resolution: "Resolved that it is the opinion of this Commit- 
tee that a National Government ought to be established, consisting 
of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary." 

This was followed by twenty-three other resolutions in which 
the word "national" occurred twenty—six times. The next day 
Mr. Ellsworth of Connecticut, moved to strike out the words 
"National Government" and insert in their stead the words, 
"Government of the United States," declaring this to be the 
proper term. "He wished also the plan to go forth as an amend- 
ment of the Articles of Confederation." (Elliott's Debates v. 5, 
p. 214.) 

This resolution was unanimously adopted. Is there no signifi- 
cance in this? No significance in the fact that no where in the 
Constitution, as finally adopted, the word, National, makes its 
appearance. Is not this significance emphasized by the fact that 
it appeared in the resolutions twenty-six times and was tiventy- 
six times struck out by a unanimous vote? Is it not far more 
expressive of the intent and purpose of the authors of the Con- 
stitution than if the word national had never been inserted in 
the Committee's resolutions? Is there not here absolute proof of 
the strongest, kind that this was regarded by the framers of the 
Constitution as a Government of free, equal and independent and 
sovereign States'^ The future historian will collect these and 
similar facts and write them into a sentence of rebuke for the 
North that will challenege extravagance, and at the same time 
will pronounce an encomium on the South that will kindle into 



58 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

a blaze the spark of patriotism in whatever land or time there 
beats a patriot's heart. 

Note that in such perversions of facts and of the meaning of 
the Constitution are found the beginnings of the great war of the 
Sixeties, The North regarded the Constitution as a child does 
its toy — to be played zvith, and then set aside at will for some- 
thing else. 

There came a time in this Convention when it was confronted 
by a crisis. The last article had these words : "The articles of 
this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, 
and the Union shall be perpetual ; nor shall any alteration at any 
time hereafter, be made in any of them, unless such alterations 
be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and afterward 
confirmed by the States." 

There might be no difficulty in securing the ratification by the 
Congress of the States, for that would be decided by a majority 
of the votes. But it was clearly foreseen that there would be 
great difficulty in obtaining a concurrence of all the State Legis- 
latures. In fact Rhode Island, as we have seen, was not repre- 
sented in the Convention at all, yet she was a member of the 
Confederation. Also two of New York's delegates had with- 
drawn ; and other evidences of disaffection had appeared. 

What must be done in this emergency? The demand for a 
more efficient government of the States was imperative. The 
Convention, therefore, decided to transcend the limits of its au- 
thority and introduce a provision into the new Constitution, that 
its ratification by nine of the States would be sufficient for the 
establishment of a government among the nine ratifying the 
Constitution. This could not be done without referring the 
question of ratification to the people of the States. Therefore 
the last article of the new Constitution has this provision : "The 
ratification by the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient 
for the establishment of Government between the States ratifying 
the same." 

You cannot touch the Constitution without placing your finger 
upon a declaration of the sovereignty of the States ; and sov- 
ereignty carries with it the supreme will of the State ; and the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 



59 



supreme will, paramount authority, the right of secession, as 
zvcli as the right of accession. 

is it any wonder centralists seek their arguments elsewhere? 
Who ever heard of a centralist basing his argument upon the 
Constitution ? They base their logic on such phrases as "A Pious 
Fraud," "a Divided Sovereignty," "a Mistaken Statement oi 
Fasts," and fictions and absurdities, impossible of proof. 

The calling of the Convention, 1?87, implies the absolute right 
of the several States to accede to propositions, and unite for 
their common welfare. The seventh article of the Constitution 
providing for its ratification by nine of the States declares the 
right to accede and the right to secede are taught with equal 
clearness and equal force. To deny the one is to deny the other. 
Who ever heard of even a centralist denying the right of a State 
to unite in a compact with other States ? Yet the right to unite 
implies the right to disunite. 

This very evident conclusion is sustained by Mr. Gerry of 
Massachusetts, afterward Vice President, who said, "If nine 
out of thirteen States can dissolve the compact, six of nine will 
be just as able to dissolve the future one hereafter. This truth- 
ful utterance was made in opposition to the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, but it was true neverheless. 

Mr. Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitu- 
tion, advocating its adoption asks, "On what principle the Con- 
federation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among 
the States, can be superseded without the uanimous consent of 
the parties to it ?" He answers his own question thus : "By re- 
curring to the absolute necessity of the case ; to the great principle 
of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and na- 
ture's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of so- 
ciety are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to 
which all such institutions must be sacrificed." (Italics ours.) 

He further states in justification of this right: "It is an es- 
tablished doctrine on the subject of treaties that all the articles 
are nuitually conditions cf each other; that a breach of any one 
article by other of the parties absolves the others, and autb.ori-es 
them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. 



60 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths 
for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular 
States to a dissolution of the Federal pact, will not the complain- 
ing parties find it a difficult task to answer the multiplied and 
important infractions with which they may be confronted? The 
time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas 
which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with 
it the part which the same motives dictate." 

Mr. Madison is here commenting on the seventh article of 
the Constitution. He calls secession " a delicate truth," and "a. 
delicate truth can mean nothing but a delicate right." The pro- 
priety of z'eiling any statement of this right tmtil the occasion for 
its exercise arises, suggests the great caution of the statesmen of 
that day in regard to "This delicate truth." He calls this seventh 
Article a provision for the secession of nine States from the Con- 
federation. 

Note here another very important fact : The secession of the 
nine, and two other states, 'tinder this Constitutional proznsion, by 
one at a time, and by State Conventions, called by the State at 
the option of the States, is absolute proof that "We, the people," 
in the preamble of the Constitution, do not mean the people of 
the United States in the aggregate. 

These facts are admitted to be true by historians of the North 
who value their reputation as historian. Think of this and then 
know that they claim the right to set them aside because foreign 
millions in this country know nothing of our Constitution, and 
because of the mere assumption — not the proofs — that the masses 
of the North have been ''nationalized." Know, too, that the North 
made these absurd excuses the ground for setting aside the 
Constitution and insulting the South by the senseless assumption 
that the Constitution v/as amended or superceded by a fictitious 
unwritten Constiti'.tion. Know too. that the Constitution, they 
thus annulled, is "in the form of a solemn compact betweeen the 
States ; and that in disregard of their oaths to abide by that 
sacred insrument they disavozv that the South has i-ights under 
the Constitution that should be respected. Know too that the 
South, ever faithful to the Constitution, knew nothing of their 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 61 

false laws, nothing of their false fictions. Know too, that if 
the great masses of the South had known of these false laws and 
fictions their ordinary intelligence would have spurned the con- 
clusion that such fabricatons could have superseded a written 
Constitution that provided for the only manner in which it could 
be changed. It was such gross insults as these, such illogical, 
senseless assumptions as these, coupled with all the pompons in- 
sults of the North, that enraged the South. In this degradation 
of the Constitution, in these unauthorized assumptions with all 
their base slanders', were heard the first low mutterings of the 
coming storm of war that was to spill rivers of blood and lay 
in untimely graves the flower of Northern and Southern man- 
hood. Yet we are told "the South precipitated this war," and 
"without cause." If depravity can ever blush, should it not blush 
here ? , 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE TWO COMPACTS, CONTINUED. 

On the 17th of July 1787, the proposition concerning the elec- 
tion of president was under consideration in the Philadelphia 
Convention. The original proposition contemplated his election 
by "the National Legislature" — that is by the Congress of States. 
Mr. Morris of Pennsylvania, a strong centralist, moved that the 
words "National Legislature" be stricken, and the words "Citizens 
of the United States" be inserted. The mover was a recognized 
centralist, and the words were ambiguous. Hence the motion 
received only one vote — that is the vote of one State, Pennsyl- 
vania. 

On the 23rd of July, 1787, just six days later, the question of 
the ratification of the Constitution by the conventions of the 
people of the States was considered. Mr. Morris now moved that 
the reference of the plan be made to one general convention, 
chosen and authorised by the people to consider, amend and es- 
tablish the same (Elliott's Debates p. 239, Vol 1). 

Here the issue of centralism was directly made. With what 
result? Two words give the answer, "Not Seconded." 

It has been said of Mr. Morris that "he was a man of dis- 
tinguished ability, great personal influence, and undoubted patriot- 
ism." It was not the man, but the proposition that was so sig- 
nally condemned. In the light of these facts what becomes of 
"We the People" in the sense of " the people in the aggregate?" 

Remember twelve soverign States were in this Convention — 
Rhode Island being absent of her own free will. Centralism in 
this Convention was represented by a small but able minority. 
There were no abler men in that Convention than Hamilton, 
King, Wilson, Randolph, Pinkney and Morris. Yet no statesman 
of that day would have risked his reputation by construing the 
Constitution as that of a centralism. Such a construction would 
have met with indignant protest throughout the entire domain 
from North to South, and from East to West. 

Mr. Hamilton, and his gifted allies kneiv that they had failed 
to incorporate centralism into the Constitution. Right loyally did 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 63 

they accept the resuk. The great expounders of the Constitu- 
tion in the ''Federahst" were Madison, Jay, and Hamilton. This 
immortal trio, without exception, expounded the Constitution as 
favoring States-rights, and advocated its adoption with all its 
Federal and States-right features. Yet in the Convention of 
1787 Mr. Hamilton had "favored the election of a president and 
Senate for life, or during good behavior, with a veto power in 
Congress on the action of the State Legislatures." 

Notwithstanding all this Mr. Hamilton became both the ad- 
vocate and expounder of the Constitution as it was then proposed 
and afterwards ratified. 

In his able expositions, through the "Federalist," be repeatedly 
quotes, adopts and applies to this proposed Constitution, Montest- 
quieu's description of a 'Confederate Republic' Through the 
same source he repells the idea that a sovereign State could be sued 
in these plain terms : "It is inherent in the nature of sovereignty 
not to be amenable to the suit of any individual without its con- 
sent. This is the general sense and the general practice of mankind, 
and the exemption, as one of the attributes of sovereignty, is 
now enjoyed by the government of every State in the Union. Un- 
less, therefore, there is a surrender of this immunity in the plan 
of the Convention, it will remain with the States, and the danger 
intimated must be merely ideal. . . . The contracts between 
a nation and individuals are only binding on the conscience of 
the sovereign, and have no pretensions to a compulsive force. 
They confer no right of action independent of the sovereign will. 
To what purpose would it be to authorize suits against States for 
the debts they owe? How could recoveries be enforced? It is 
evident it could not be done without waging war against the con- 
tracting State ; and to ascribe to the Federal courts, by mere im- 
plication, and in destruction of a pre-existing right of the State 
government, a power which would involve such a consequence, 
would be altogether forced and unwarranted." (Federalist No. 
81). 

These are the significant words of the brave, manly Hamilton, 
who towered above his personal preferences in the splendid 



64 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

character of the unselfish patriot, and accepted the Constitution, 
as proposed by the Convention, with all its sovereign and States- 
right theories, as the express will of the great majority of the 
American people. He assumes as an undisputed fact that the 
States are sovereigns. His entire argument is based on the 
sovereignty of the States. With him a State or a nation were 
interchangeable terms. He asserted that a State could not be 
forced even to enforce the fulfillment of a moral duty or obliga- 
tion — "It would be altogether forced and unwarranted." 

Again, objections had been raised against the Constitution 
because it contained no bill of rights. Mr. Hamilton met this 
objection in these words : "Here, in strictness, the people sur- 
render nothing ; and as they retain everything, they have no need 
of particular reservation. ... I go further, and affirm 
that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent contended for, 
are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would 
be absolutely dangerous. They would contain various exceptions 
to powers not granted, and on this very account would afford 
a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why 
declare that things shall not be done, which there is no power 
to do." 

With what consumate clearness Mr. Hamilton here asserts 
that the grants themselves, miade to the Federal Government in 
the Constitution, are not surrenders ; that they are mere dele- 
gations of powers by the people of the States ; and therefore 
that the States have surrendered no sovereignty and consequently 
are as sovereign under the Constitution as before. He also de- 
clares here the oft-repeated fact, that the delegated powers were 
strictly limited to those expressly granted. 

Again in the "Federalist" (No. 85) he states the same priciples 
in these words : "Every Constitution for the United States must 
inevitably consist of a great variety of particulars in which thir- 
teen independent States are to be accommodated in their in- 
terests or opinions of interest. . . . Hence the necessity of 
molding and arranging all the particulars, which are to compose 
the whole, in such a manner as to satisfy all the parties to the 
compact." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 65 

In all these plain expressions of the great Centralist there is 
not a line — not an utterance — which does not assume, as an in- 
disputable fact, that the Constitution is pre-eminently a States- 
right document from preamble to finish. In no utterances of 
Hamilton is there to be found such an idea that "we the people" 
of the Constitution, means "the people in the aggregate." Mr. 
Madison in the Virginia Convention said substantially the same 
thing when he asserted that "the people who ordained and es- 
tablished the Constitution were not the people as composing one 
great body, but the people as composing thirteen sovereignties." 

Let it be remembered that in the Philadelphia Convention 
Madison held somewhat similar views to those of Hamilton, 
but more moderate. Like Hamilton he cordially accepted the 
Constitution as it came from the hands of the Convention. Like 
Hamilton also he was one of the ablest and most zealous advo- 
cates of its adoption. 

Bear in mind that Madison and Hamilton were two of the 
most illustrious authors of the Constitution. They failed to 
shape that instrument as they wished it. This gives to their 
testimony increased value. They stand out before the gaze of 
posterity as the Constitution's two most eminent contemporary 
expounders. More valuable testimony than theirs could not be 
offered for its interpretation and true meaning. With them the 
L^nion was a Confederacy ; the States thirteen sovereignties, or 
nations ; and the Republic, a republic of nations or States. The 
immortal Washington also referred to the proposed Union as a 
"Confederacy" of States, a "Confederated Government." He 
called the Constitution "a compact or treaty," and classed it with 
treaties between "men, bodies of men, or countries." On Jan- 
uary 7th, 1788, he wrote to Count Rochambeau in reference to 
the Constitution : "It is to be submitted to conventions chosen 
by the people in the several States, and by them approved or re- 
jected." (Italics ours). (What does "we the people" mean 
here?) On the 28th of April, 1788 he wrote to Lafayette. "The 
people of the several States retain every thing they do not, by ex- 
press terms, give up." (Italics ours) On the 17th of June 1788, 
he wrote to Gen. Knox, "I cannot but hope that the States which 



66 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

may be disposed to make a secession will think often and serious- 
ly of the consequence." On June 28th, 1788, he wrote to Gen. 
Pinckney that "New Hampshire had acceded to the new Con- 
federacy," and referring to North Carolina said, "I should be 
astonished if that State should withdraw from the Union."' 

John Marshall — afterward the most distinguished Chief Jus- 
tice of the United States — in the Virginia Convention of 1788, 
said in a speech, "The State Governments did not derive their 
powers from the General Government ; but each Government de- 
rived its powers from the people, and each was to act according 
to the powers given it. Would any gentleman deny this. . , , 
Could any man say that this power was not retained by the 
States, as they had not given it away? For does not a power 
remain till it is given away? The State legislatures had power 
to command and govern their militia before, and have it still, 
undeniably, unless there is something in this Constitution that 
takes it away. . . The power of governing the militia 

was not vested in the States by implication, because being 
possessed of it antecedently to the adoption of the Government, 
and not being divested of it, by any grant or restriction in the 
Constitution, they must necessarily be as fully possessed of it 
as ever they had been, and it could not be said that the States 
derived any pozvcrs from that system, but retained them, though 
not acknowledged in any part of it.' (Italics ours). (Elliott's 
Debates. Vol. 3, pp. 389-391). 

What names contemporary with the Constitution are more 
illustrious than those of Washington, Madison, Hamilton and 
Marshall ? What emphasis these great names give to the prin- 
ciples of States-rights ! The evidence is the best. The proof is 
complete — as much so as that of a mathical demonstration. 
Is it asked how centralists attempt to overcome this very high 
and very strong testimony? The answer is (1) by silence; (2) 
by feigned facts. Those who use the arguments of silence, hope, 
perhaps, that previous opinions of these distinguished statesmen 
may still be regarded as in their favor. 

Those who use feigned facts, or fictions, do so because they 
can do no better. J. P. Gordy, (Political Parties in the U. S. ed. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 67 

1900, Vol. 1, p. 79 says "The Convention framed a Constitution 
by which the adoption of which thirteen peoples, imagining 
themselves still independent and sovereign really acknowledge 
themselves to be but parts of a single political whole. But they 
made this acknowledgment unconsciously. They continue to 
think themselves as sovereigns who indeed permitted an agent 
to exercise some of their functions for them, but who had not 
abdicated their thrones. If the Constitution had contained a 
definite statement of the actual fact; if it had said that to adopt it 
was to acknowledge the sovereignty of one American people, no 
part of which could sever its connections from the rest tmthout 
the consent of the whole, it would probably have been rejected by 
every State in the Union." (Italics ours). Mr. Chas. Francis 
Adams sanctions this view of the case and calls it "a Pious 
Fraud," saying "the bond was deceptive," and says, "The fram- 
ers — that is the more astute, practical and far-seeing — went as far 
as they dared." He implicates Hamilton in this "Fraud" in 
these words : "It is impossible to believe that a man so intel- 
lectually acute as Hamilton failed to see the inherent weakness 
of the plan proposed. He did see it; but under existing condi- 
tions, it was, from his point of view, the best attainable." (Con- 
stitutional Ethics, p. 12). 

We challege one and all, including Gordy and Adams, to 
point to a single fact upon which these bold assertions are made. 
On the contrary, every fact is against them. Mr. Gordy admits 
this when he says "If the Constitution had contained a definite 
statement of the actual fact," etc. viz : the actual fact stated by 
Washington, Hamilton, Madison and Marshall. Mr. Adams admits 
it also when he finds it necessary to declare "The bond was de- 
ceptive." Both admit the intention of the framers of the Con- 
stitution was to so word that instrument as to retain the sov- 
ereignty of the States, and all know that the intention decides its 
meaning. 

To say a fraud was practiced on the American people is either 
true or false. If true it has no weight as argument for it proves 
beyond all doubt the intention of the Convention. If false it cer- 
tainly has no weight, for it did not exist ; and there is not the 



68 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

shadow of evidence that it did exist. Mr. Adams does Hamilton 
a great injustice when he declares with emphasis, "He did see it." 
No man without the best of evidence has a right to say Mr. 
Hamilton dead contradicts Mr. Hamilton living. 

A very peculiar argument against the indisputable facts is 
this : "The only parties to the Constitution, contemplated by it 
originally were the thirteen Confederalted iBitates" ; ijthait the 
"States have 'exclusive possession of sovereignty over their own 
territory ; and the United States Constitute 'The American Con- 
federacy. As between the original States the representation 
rests on compact and plighted faith.' " This method of defense 
was presented in a memorial to Congress by the citizens of Bos- 
ton, Dec. 15, 1819, relative to the admission of Missouri. Daniel 
Webster at that time held to this view, and so did John Quincy. 

When mature years came and with them a more mature judg- 
ment, and a more thorough information as to the facts no man 
was truer to the Constitution as construed by Washington, Hamil- 
ton, Madison and Marshall, than Webster. In 1851, at Capon 
Springs, Virginia, in a speech he said : "If the South were to 
violate any part of the Constitution intentionally or systematical- 
ly, and persisted in so doing year after year, and no remedy could 
be had, would the North be any longer bound to the rest of it? 
If the North deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purposes, were 
to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer 
to observe its other obligations ? .... I have not hesitated 
to say, and I repeat, that, if the Northern States refuse, willfully 
and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitu- 
tion which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress 
provide no remedy ,the South would no longer be bound to 
observe the compact. A bargain cannt be broken on one side, 
and still bind the other side. (This contradicts Lincoln's in- 
augural.) 

When were these utterances of the immortal Webster made? 
Just nine years before the election of Abraham Lincoln. Did not 
fourteen Northern States willfully and deliberately refuse to 
carry into effect that part of the Constitution. They were so 
willful and deliberate that they refused by enacting laws to that 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 69 

eflfect. (Curtis's Life of Webster, Chap. 37, Vol. 2, pp. 518-519). 
The suns of another year did not rise and set before the great 
American statesman went to his final rest, at the age of three 
score and ten. He was looking to the west and not the east. 
All of a most brilliant life lay behint him. It was the time of 
sober thought, and sober utterance. Who can deny the sincerity 
of these dying words of the greatest of American orators? 

In 1851 the immortal Webster wrote beneath the testimony of 
Washington, Hamilton, and Marshall, "Well Done and Well 
Said," and before another year had counted all her seasons he 
sank into an honored grave, loved, revered, and lamented by a 
great nation. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ORDINANCES OF THE STATES RATI- 
FYING THE CONSTITUTION. 

We have just been dealing in facts. The South banks on 
facts. They are the fearless and impartial defenders of the 
truth; and the truth is all the South demands. Truth is im- 
perial. "The eternal ages are hers." But what are fictions 
They are "the golden apples kept by a dragon." Fictions are 
air-castles ; facts realities. Facts declare the Constitution to be 
the backbone of the Government, and the supreme law of the 
land ; fiction declares some imaginary invention to be better, 
and to have taken the place of the Constitution. Facts de- 
clare the Constitution can be supplanted or amended only as it 
prescribes ; fiction declares it can be amended or supplanted 
by an imaginary or assumed change of public opinion, or by 
public ignorance. 

As the South takes no stock in fictions, but depends for her 
defense upon the facts and the teachings of history, which are 
only expositions of facts, we shall now proceed to have the 
States testify to the facts in their ratifications of the Constitu- 
tion. 

The first to ratify the Constitution was little Delaware. It 
was on the Tth day of December 1787. It was most significant. 
Because Delaware alone had given special instructions to her 
delegates to demand equal representation in Congress. Equal 
representation was the synonym of a free, independent and 
sovereign State. Thus Delaware speaks in no uncertain words. 

The next was Pennsylvania, five days later, on the 12th of 
December, 1787. Thus Pennsylvania gives her voice against 
"we the people in the aggregate," and in favor of State sov- 
ereignty and states-rights. 

Six davs after the approving voice of Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, on the 18th day of December, by a unanimous vote, 
ratified the Constitution. This unanimity was very significant. 
JFor New Jersey had led the Convention in behalf of the states- 
rights, or Federal idea. Defending this position. William Pat- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 71 

terson. afterwards Governor of the State, said, "Can we, on 
this ground, form a National Government? I fancy not. Our 

commissions give a complexion to the business We are met 

here as the deputies of thirteen independent sovereign States for 
Federal purposes. Can we consolidate their sovereignty and 
form one nation, and annihilate the sovereignties of our States, 
who have sent us here for other purposes?"' (Italics ours). 
"Can we as representatives of independent States annihilate the 
essential powers of independency? Are not the votes of this 
Convention taken on every question under the idea of depen- 
dency ?" 

Is it any wonder that Charles Francis Adams, in combating 
states-rights, says, "It is not by verbal construction?" For 
words have meaning, and words are supposed to convey their 
own meaning. "We are met here as the deputies of thirteen in- 
dependent sovereign States," strikes a death blow at Centralism. 
A verbal construction here would be fatal. Therefore it must 
be shunned. Ponder well fliese other words: "Can we con- 
solidate their sovereignty? Can we form one nation and an- 
nihilate the sovereignties of the States?" Let false fiction be 
never so false and it can not change the meaning of these words : 
"Can we as representatives of independent States annihilate the 
essential powers of independency?" They speak the same unerring 
language ; and all the way through the same strong clear words 
express their meaning in the independency and sovereignty of 
the States. 

The ordinance upon which the Convention of New Jersey 
cast her unanimous vote in ratifying the Constitution, has these 
words: "having maturely deliberated on and considered the 
aforesaid proposed Constitution, do hereby, for and on behalf of 
the people of the State of New Jersey, agree to ratify and con- 
firm the same, and every part thereof." 

"Done in the Convention, by the unanimous consent of the 
members present, this 18th day of Decem^ber, A. D., 1787." 

There was therefore no hasty action, but calmn deliberation 
on the part of this State in ratifying the Constitution. This 



72 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

deliberation was to be expected of a State that led the Coriverr- 
tion in demanding states-rights. 

On the 2nd of January, 1788, Georgia followed New Jersey 
by a unanimous vote. The record declares it was through "the 
delegates of the State of Georgia in the convention met, pur- 
suant to the provisions of the Legislature aforesaid, in 

virtue of the powers and authority given us by the people of 
the said State for that purpose," that they did "fully and en- 
tirely assent to, ratify and adopt the said Constitution." Note 
that it was "by virtue of the powers and authority given us by 
the people of the said State, and not by the people of all the States 
in the aggregate. 

On the 9th day of January (one week later than Georgia) 
Connecticut ratified the Constitution with equal distincress as 
to the source of her authority. It was "in the name of the 
people of Connecticut, we, the delegates of the people of the 
said State, in general convention assembled, pursuant to an act 

of the Legislature in October last do assent to, ratify and 

adopt the Constitution reported by the Convention of delegates 
in Philadelphia." 

Massachusetts followed on the 7th of February, 1788, after 
a warm contest due to her extreme jealousy as to State Inde- 
pendence and State Sovereignty. The Convention subjected the 
Constitution to "a close, critical and rigorous examination with 
reference to this very point." It was finally adopted by the 
close vote of 187 to 168 ; and then only by guarding against any 
sacrifice or compromise, of State Sovereignty, being assured by 
the advocates of the Constitution that their proposed amend- 
ments would be adopted. The tenth amendment of the Con- 
stitution is the result of the demand of the Convention of Mas- 
sachusetts; and this tenth amendment was designed to take the 
place of the second article in the Constitution of the Confed- 
eration. And that article is the emphatic assertion of the con- 
tinued freedom, sovereignty and independence of the United 
States. If Chas. Francis Adam's "Pious fraud" had the least 
claim to reality, this tenth amendment took its breath, and killed 
it dead. That amendment is in these words: "The powers not 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 73 

delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively 
or to the people." (Italics ours). It also gives another mor- 
tal wound to the doctrine of "we the people" as construed by 
the Centralists; and to the doctrine of the silence of the Con- 
stitution as construed by Lincoln in his Cooper Institute speech 
and in his inaugural address. 

Massachusetts ratified the Constitution on the 7th of Feb- 
ruary 1788 in these terms : "In Convention of the delegates 
of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788. The 
Convention having impartially discussed and fully considered 

the Constitution for the United States of America do in 

the name and in behalf of the people of the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts assent to and ratify the Constitution for the 
United States of America," 

Maryland followed Massachusetts on the 38th of April 1788, 
declaring in her ordinance of ratification, that it was done 
by "the delegates of the people of Maryland," and "in the name 
and on behalf of the people of the State of Maryland." 

South Carolina on the 23rd of May, 1788, ratified the Con- 
stitution "in Convention of the people of the State of South 
Carolina by their representatives in the name and behalf of the 
people of this State." 

South Carolina in words very similar to those of Massachu- 
setts, and which were embodied in the tenth amendment, after- 
ward accompanied her ratification ordinance with these words: 
"This Convention doth also declare that no section or paragraph 
of the said Constitution warrants a construction that the States 
do not retain every power not expressly relinguished by them 
and vested in the General Government of the Union." Did 
Lincoln ever read these words? Did he ever read the ratifica- 
tion ordinances of the States? 

In Convention on the 21st of June 1788, New Hampshire in 
her ratifying ordinances thus spoke : "The delegates of the 
people of the State of New Hampshire, declare their approval 
and adoption of the Constitution," declaring as did Massachu- 
setts and South Carolina in explicit terms that "all powers not 



74 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

expressly and particularly delegated by the aforesaid Constitution 
are reserved to the several States, to be by them exercised." 

In the light of the ratifying ordinances of Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire and South Carolina how does Chas. Francis Adams 
justify his fiction that the Federal Constitution was based upon 
a divided sovereignty to say nothing of the ratifying ordi- 
nances of the other States? 

In the Convention of the State of Virginia the Constitution 
was very ably contested and equally as ably advocated. Some 
of the most gifted men of that brilliant period were in that 
Convention. . . .among them Madison, Mason and Randolph, for- 
merly also members of the Philadelphia Convention. Madison 
was its able and earnest advocate ; Mason and the eloquent Pat- 
rick Henry its able opponents. Every strong point in the instru- 
ment was emphasized by Madison, and every vulnerable point 
was vehemently attacked by Mason and Henry. But finally on 
the ,?6th of June, 1788, the Constitution was ratified by the close 
vote of 89-79. 

It was ratified in the same terms of the other States, by *'the 
delegates of the people of Virginia in the name and in be- 
half of the people of Virginia." In her ratifying ordinance, 
like Massachusetts, South Carolina and New Hampshire, the 
State of Virginia through her convention demanded explicit 
guarantees against consolidation, in these words : "That the 
powers granted the Constitution, being derived from the people 
of the United States, may be resumed by them, whenever the 
same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that 
every power not granted thereby, remains with the people and 
at their v^'ill, etc." 

Here we have the words, "the people of the United States" 
clearly in the sense of the people of Virginia, and of the other 
States who are taking similar action in ratifying the Constitu- 
tion. Here too we are again told with force and clearness that 
the United States Government could exercise no powers except 
such as were granted it by the States. Did Lincoln know this 
when he wrote his inaugural? 

Just one month later on the 26th of July, 1788, after an ani- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 75 

mated and prolong-ed discussion New York ratified the Consti- 
tution by the very close majority of 30 to 27. Even this small 
majority was not secured without concessions on the part of 
the advocates of the Constitution. At one time "it was pro- 
posed to make a condition precedent to the validity of the ratifi- 
cation." But instead of a conditional ratification she provided 
for the resumption of her grants as Virginia had done, and sug- 
gested a number of amendments. These she set forth in cir- 
cular letters to the other States, declaring that "nothing but 
the fullest confidence of obtaining a revision and an invincible 
reluctance to separating from our sister States, could have pre- 
vails 1 upon such a sufficient number to ratify it without stipu- 
lation in the previous amendments." 

The ratification was in similar terms to those of the other 
States : "By the delegates of the people of the State of New 
York" .... in the name and behalf of the people of New York." 

Among the declarations of principles, set forth by this State, 
was the following: "That the powers of Government may be 
resumed whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness; 
that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the 
said Constitution, clearly delegated to the Congress of the Unit- 
ed States, or the departments of the Government thereof, re- 
mains to the people of the several States, or to their respective 
State Governments, to whom they may have granted the same ; 
and that those clauses in the Constitution which declare that 
Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply 
that Congress is entitled to any powers, not given by the said 
Constitution, but such clauses are to be construed either as ex- 
ceptions to certain specific powers or as inserted for greater 
caution." (Italics ours). Did Lincoln ever read this? 

Thus New York joins Virginia in refusing to delegate away 
her right to resume the powers she grants to the general Gov- 
ernment. If Virginia and New York did not part with their 
right to resume the grants they made to the Federal Govern- 
ment they retained them. If they retained them they had the 
right to exercise them. What these States could rightfully do 
all could do. Therefore we have here evidently the right of 



76 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

secession. We also again have a clear sidelight as to the mean- 
ing of "we the people ;" and as to the fact that the Government 
can exercise only the powers expressly delegated to it. May we 
not ask here, how can an agent, dependent upon its creator for 
every power it has, for every breath it draws, be sovereign over 
its Creator ? 

This is the eleventh State that has ratified the Constitution. 
The voice of one is the voice of all. That voice is that the States 
were "free, independent and sovereign." By what authority 
does Francis N. Thorpe say of the Convention itself: "It ig- 
nored the articles of the Constitution and the State Constitu- 
tions — save as precedents — " and "proceeded" to consider a new 
Constitution? "Had the States been sovereign the delegates 
would have been under obligations merely to suggest amend- 
ments to the Articles." (The Civil War from a Northern 
Standpoint, p. 163). Have we not the clearest evidence that 
the Philadelphia Convention merely suggested ; and that the 
States adopted? 

On the 4th of Mbrch 1789, the Government of the United 
States was organized with George Washington as President and 
John Adams as Vice-President. It consisted of eleven States 
with Senators and Representatives from eleven States. 

Two States were yet standing aloof in the unquestioned and 
unmolested attitude of absolute independence of sovereignty. 
These two States were North Carolina and Rhode Island. 

On the 2nd day of August 1788, North Carolina condition- 
ally rejected the Constitution, passing the following resolution : 
"Resolved: That a declaration of rights, asserting and securing 
from encroachment, the great principles of civil and religious 
liberty, and the unalienable rights of the people, together with 
amendments to the most ambiguous and exceptional parts of 
the Constitution of Government, ought to be laid before Con- 
gress, and the Convention of States that shall or may be called 
for the purpose of amending the said Constitution, for their con- 
sideration, previous to the ratification of the Constitution afore- 
said on the part of the State of North Carolina." 

More than a year had passed after the adoption of this res- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 77 

olution, when the New Government had been in operation for 
nearly seven months, North Carolina had become convinced 
that the most important of her proposed amendments would 
be adopted. Consequently on the 21st day of November 1789, 
her Convention ratified the Constitution "in behalf of the free- 
men, citizens, and inhabitants of the State of North Carolina." 

The thirteenth and last State to ratify the Constitution was 
Rhode Island. The Constitution had been submitted to a di- 
rect vote of the people, and overwhelmingly rejected. When 
the Government under the new Constitution had been in opera- 
tion more than fourteen months, on the 29th day of May, 1790, 
Rhode Island acceded to the Union. She had become convinced 
that the amendments she deemed desirable, would be adopted. 

Even then it was ratified by the very close vote of 34 to 32 

a majority of only two, showing how extremely jealous the peo- 
ple were of their rights as a state. It was made in these words : 
"We, the delegates oT the people of the State of Rhode Island 
and Providence Plantation, do, by these presents, assent to and 
ratify the said Constitution." 

We have given a synopsis of the procedings of the thirteen 
States on entering into the new compact between the States. 
It will be seen that in each case State sovereignty was assumed, 
as a matter of fact, and the ratification made by "the delegates 
of the people of the State;" that each State acted on its own 
volition as to the time of holding its conventions, the number 
of delegates, and the right to ratify or reject. They were en- 
tirely free from the control of any consolidated nation. No 
such nation was then in existence. We have also seen that 
after eleven States had organized a new Government of their 
own there were two States, North Carolina and Rhode Island, 
left unconnected and entirely independent of any other politi- 
cal power, unless they still belonged to the "perpetual Union 
of the first Confederation." In either case they did not belong 
to the new association. All sophistry cannot so class them. 
If sophistry is unequal to the task it is certain logic is not. Not 
once did these two States call the eleven seceding States "trai- 
tors" or "rebels." Nor did they even deny the right of the 



78 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

eleven seceding states to withdraw from the "perpetual Union." 
Such a right had never been denied until men arose who thought 
fiction of higher rank than fact. The eleven seceding States 
earnestly desired the accession of the two Union States, but 
never questioned their freedom of action. 

To show the friendly relationship between one of these two 
"perpetual Union States," and the States of the New Confedera- 
tion attention is invited to the following correspondence between 
Rhode Island and the New United States. 

"United States, September 26, 1789. 
"Gentlemen of the Senate : 

"Having yesterday received a letter written in this month by 
the Governor of Rhode Island, at the request and in behalf of 
the General Assembly of that State, addressed to the President, 
the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the eleven 
United States of America in Congress assembled. I take the 
earliest opportunity of laying a copy of it before you. George 
Washington." (No exception was taken to the term, 'the eleven 
United States of America in Congress assembled') — that is the 
eleven States united were assembled in Congress." 

The communication to which President Washington referred 
is as follows in part : 

"State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, 
In General Assembly, September Session, 1789. 
"To the President, the Senate and the House of Representatives 
of the eleven United States of America in Congress As- 
sembled : 

"The critical situation in which the people of this State are 
placed engages us to make these assurances, on their behalf, of 
their attachment and friendship to their sister States, and of 
their disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and friendly in- 
tercourse. They know themselves to be a handful, compara- 
tively viewed, and although they now stand as it were alone, 
they have not separated themselves, or departed from the prin- 
ciples of that Confederation which was formed by their sister 
States in their struggle for freedom in the hour of danger. . . . 

"Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 79 

Government formed and adopted by most of our sister States, 
we doubt not, has given uneasiness to them. That we have not 
seen our way clear to it, consistently with our idea of the prin- 
ciples upon which we all embarked together, has also given pain 
to us. We have not doubted that we might thereby avoid pres- 
ent difficulties, but we have apprehended future mischief 

"Can it be thought strange that, with these impressions the 
people should wait to see the proposed system organized and in 
operation? To see what further checks and securities would be 
agreed to and established by way of amendments, by Govern- 
ment for themselves and their posterity? 

"We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether con- 
sidered as foreigners having no particular affinity or connection 
with the United States ; but that trade and commerce, upon 
which the prosperity of the State much depends, will be pre- 
served as free and open between this State and the United States, 
as our dififerent situations at present can possibly admit 

"We feel ourselves attached by the strongest ties of friend- 
ship, and interest, to our sister States ; and we can not, without 
the greatest reluctance, look to any other quarter for those ad- 
vantages of commercial intercourse which we receive to be more 
natural and reciprocal between them and us. 

"I am at the request and in behalf of the General Assembly 
your most obedient, humble servant, 

"JOHN COLLIS, Governor," 

(American State Papers Vol. 1, Miscellaneous.) 
This letter of Governor CoUis shows that the people of Rhode 
Island "had not departed from the principles of that Confedera- 
tion which was formed by their sister States in their struggle 
for freedom, and in the hour of danger;" that Rhode Island 
considered herself as a distinct nation, separated from the Unit- 
ed States, Francis Newton Thorpe and others to the contrary 
notwithstanding. As such she expresses a hope that the United 
States will not regard her in the same light as foreigners usual- 
ly are. The Governor says in substance, "Nominally we are 
foreigners, but it is hoped that on account of our former pecu- 
liar relations we shall not be altogether considered in the light 



80 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of such. We are now indeed two distinct nations, but on 
most friendly terms; distinct, but kindred in blood and polit- 
ical ties. We are two distinct nations to-day, but, as it were, 
yesterday, we were one. You seceded from us. We did not 
leave you. It is therefore hoped that you will so treat with us 
that trade and commerce will be preserved as free and open 
between us." 

This is a most touching and pathetic appeal of one sovereign 
State to eleven sovereign states united under a common bond. 
It borders on the romantic. It must have touched in a ten- 
der spot every heart of the members of that historic Congress 
of the eleven seceding States. 

This letter of Governor Collis adds its undying testimony 
to that of the other States in their ratifying ordinances, each 
of which declares in the plainest terms it was ordained "in the 
name and in behalf of the people of the said State." Who- 
ever does not read State- Sovereignty here in the testimony of 
the thirteen States and that of Governor Collis read through 
the blind eyes of prejudice. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE REAL NATURE OF THE GOVERNMENT 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The thirteen ratifying ordinances of the thirteen states speak 
with a clearness and with an emphasis seldom, if ever, equaled. 
The voice of one is the voice of all. The conspicuous lesson 
taught by all is their earnest desire, in entering the Union, 
to preserve intact their sovereignty. This fact stands out on 
the page of history like a mountain on the plain. In their rati- 
fying ordinances these thirteen States proposed no less than 
one hundred and forty-five (145) amendments to the Constitu- 
tion, and no less than ninety-three (93) bills of right. All these 
proposed amendments and all these proposed bills of right de- 
clare with an intense emphasis for the sovereignty of the States. 
Nor are these the mere utterances of individuals. They are 
the promulgations of States; not only of States, but States in 
their highest and most auhoritative capacity, — that of State Con- 
tions. It is therefore testimony of the highest character. If 
these States knew their own will they reserved their sovereignty, 
and so declared in terms admitting of no doubt. 

Who drew lines about the Federal Government, saying to it, 
"thus far shalt thou go and no further?" It was the States. 
Upon what authority did they limit the powers of the Federal 
Government? It was upon their own. Whence did these 
States receive this power? It was inherent. There zvere no 
other sovereignties to confer it. Did this power to create the 
Federal Government and prescribe its limits imply supreme 
authority on the part of the States? It can mean no less un- 
less the creature is above its creator; or even "the servant is 
above his lord and master." 

How did he Federal Government originate? It was not 
self-existent. It must therefore be the product of some pre-ex- 
isting force or forces. Did it not originate, as already inti- 
mated, through the creative power of the States? This is the 
teaching of the Philadelphia Convention, that framed the Con- 
stitution, and of the State ordinances of ratification. Did the 



82 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

States confer any sovereign powers on the Federal Govern- 
ment? No man can deny that they did. Could these States 
grant what they did not have? Were they not therefore sover- 
eign political organizations? The conclusion is inevitable that 
they were. In conferring powers of sovereignty on the Federal 
Government did they not of necessity limit their own powers of 
sovereignty? The fact admits of no doubt. Were not the sover- 
eign powers of the Federal Government also limited? It is also 
beyond doubt that they were. Divided pozvers are necessarily 
limited powers. 

Does it not therefore follow that both the Federal and State 
Governments were limited as to powers of sovereignty? There 
can be but one answer and that answer is in the affirmative. Are 
the sovereign powers of these two classes of Governments iden- 
tical? They cannot be. They arc neither identical nor com- 
mon. What the States retained they did not grant. The pow- 
ers they granted away they could not exercise. Nor could the 
Federal Government exercise powers not granted by the States. 
No State or other organization can exercise a power it does not 
possess. How are we to judge which is the more authorita- 
tive, the sovereign powers of the Federal Government or those 
of the State? If we consider the powers, per se, and the ques- 
tion be determined by the sources of these powers, are not the 
powers of the State inherent, while those of the Federal Gov- 
ernment are mere grants, and grants from the States at that? 
If it be determined by the limitations of these powers, were it 
not the States that drew the lines ? If we consider powers right- 
fully belonging to the States exercised by the States, and pow- 
ers rightfully belonging to the Federal Government and exercis- 
ed by the Government, they are necessarily on the same high 
plain of right and equally authoritative in their proper spheres. 
Did the Federal Government have any choice, or exercise any 
authority in deciding the limitations of its own sovereign pow- 
ers? No more than did created man in the limitations of his 
own powers. 

From all these considerations we conclude that this is a Gov- 
ernment of States, and hence is properly called a Federal Gov- 
ernment. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 83 

Vattel on the "Law of Nations" (Book 1, Chapter 1, Sec. 4.) 
says: "Every nation that governs itself, under zuhat form so- 
ever, without any dependence on foreign powers, is a sovereign 
State." Under this definition all of the original thirteen States 
were independent sovereignties as well as under their own dec- 
larations as such. 

In the same chapter Vattel also says : "Several sovereign 
independent States may unite themselves together by a perpet- 
ual Confederacy without each in particular ceasing to he a per- 
fect State. They ivill form together a federal republic. The 
deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty 
of each member, though they may in certain respects, put some 
restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements. 
A person does not cease to be free, when he is obliged to fulfiU 
the engagements into which he very zvillingly entered." 

Vattel also says, "The law of Nations is the law of sover- 
eigns ; states free and independent are moral persons." As 
moral persons do not cease to be free when they are compelled 
to fulfill engagements, voluntarily made, so states in forming 
a Federal Government do not cease to be free and independent 
sovereigns, when forming a federal government. 

It is a fact to be noted that the terms "Federal" and "Nation- 
al" when applied to a Federal Government are interchangeable 
terms. But at the time the Constitution was before the people 
for adoption or rejection these terms constituted the names of 
the two political parties and hence had a local meaning. The 
Federal party favored the adoption of the Constitution while 
the National party opposed it. The Nationals stood for a cen- 
tral Government in which the people of all the States would be 
considered as the people in the aggregate, while the Federals 
stood for the Government proposed by the Constitution, in 
which the people would be considered as divided into thirteen 
difiFerent communities, or thirteen States. Hence all elections 
by a direct vote of the people were said to be national in char- 
acter; and all elections by the States were said to partake of 
the Federal feature. Therefore the Government proposed by 
the Constitution, if adopted, would have both national and fed- 



84 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

eral features. This according to Vattel, would not in the least, 
be inconsistent with a true Federal Government. 

Hence Madison, in the Federalist, advocating the adoption of 
the Constitution, shows its true nature in these words, applying 
the terms "National" and "federal" as construed by the Na- 
tionals : 

In order to understand the real character of a government it 
may be considered according to Madison in relation (1) to the 
Foundation on which it is established; (3) to the Sources from 
which its powers are derived; (3) the Operation of these: (4) 
extent of them; (5) the authority by which future changes in 
the Government are to be made. 

Mjadison says : "In examining the first relation it appears that 
the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification 
of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the 
special purpose; but on the other hand that this assent and rat- 
ification is to be given by the people, not as individuals com- 
posing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and in- 
dependent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be 
the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from 
the supreme authority of the people themselves. The act, there- 
fore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a national but 
a federal act. 

"That it will be a federal and not a national act. as these terms 
are understood by the objectors, the act of the people, as form- 
ing so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate 
Nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is neither 
a result from a decision of a majority of the people of the Union, 
nor from that of a majority of the States. It must result from 
a unanimous assent of the several States that are parties to it, 
diflFering no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its be- 
ing expressed, not by the Legislative authority, but by that of 
the people themselves. Were the people regarded in the trans- 
action as forming one Nation, the will of a majority of the 
whole people of the United States would bind the majority in 
the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 85 

minority ; and the will of the majority must be determined either 
by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the 
majority of the States as evidence of the will of the majority of 
the United States. Neither of these has been adopted. 

"Each State^ in ratifying- the Constitution, is considered a 
sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound 
by its own voluntary act. In this relation, the new Constitu- 
tion, if established, will be a Federal and not a National Consti- 
tution. 

"The next relation is to the Sources from which the ordinary 
powers of government are derived. The House of Representa- 
tives will derive its powers from the people of America ; and the 
people will be represented in the same proportion and on the 
same principle as they are in the Legislature of a particular State. 
So far the Government is National not Federal. The Senate on 
the other hand, will derive its powers from the States, as polit- 
ical and equal societies, and these will be represented on the 
principle of equality in the Senate as they are now in the exist- 
ing Congress. So far the Government is Federal not National. 
The executive power will be derfved from a very compound 
source. The immediate election of the President is to be made 
by the States in their political characters. The votes allotted 
to them are in a compound ratio, which considers them partly 
as distinct and coequal societies, partly as unequal members of 
the same society. The eventual election, again, is to be made 
by that branch of the Legislature which consists of the national 
representatives but in this particular act they are to be thrown 
into the form of individual delegates from so many co-equal bod- 
ies politic. From this aspect the Government appears to be of 
a mixed character, presenting at least as many federal as na- 
tional features. 

"The difference between a federal and national government 
is, by the adversaries of the plan of the Convention to consist 
in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political 
bodies composing, the Confederacy, in their political capacities. 
On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the 
uationnl. end not tlie federal character ; though perhaps not so 



8U RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

completely as has been understood. In several cases, and par- 
ticularly in the trial of controversies, to which States may be par- 
ties they must be viewed and proceeded against in their collec- 
tive and political capacities only. 

"But the Operation of the Government on the people, in their 
individual capacities, in its ordinary and most essential proceed- 
ings, may, on the whole, designate it in this relation as a Na- 
tional Government. 

"But if the Government be national with regard to the opera- 
tion of its power it changes its aspect again when we contem- 
plate it in relation to the Extent of its powers. The idea of a 
national government involves in it not only an authority over 
the individual citizens but an indefinite supremacy over all per- 
sons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful govern- 
ment. Among a people consolidated into one nation this su- 
premacy is completely vested in the National Legislature. Among 
communities united for particular purposes it is vested partly 
in the general and partly in the municipal legislatures. In the 
former case all local authorities are subordinate to the supreme, 
and may be controlled, directed or abolished by it at pleasure. 
In the latter the local or municpial authorities form distinct and 
independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject, within 
their respective spheres, to the general authority than the gen- 
eral authority is to them within its own sphere. In this relation, 
then, the proposed Government cannot be deemed a national one, 
since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only 
and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sov- 
ereignty over all other objects. It is true that in controversies, 
relating to the boundary between two jurisdictions, the tribunal, 
which is ultimately to decide, is to be established under the Gen- 
eral Government. But this does change the principle of the 
case. The decision is to be impartially made, according to the 
rules of the Constitution, and all the usual and most effectual 
precautions are taken to secure this impartiality. Some such 
tribunal is clearly essential to prevent an appeal to the sivord and 
a disolution of the compact; and it ought to be established under 
the general rather than under the local governments, or, to speak 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 87 

more properly, that it could be safely established under the first 
alone, is a position not likely to be combatted. 

"If we try the Constitution in its last relation to the Authority 
by which amendments are to he made, zve find it neither wholly 
national or wholly federal. Were it wholly National the Su- 
preme and ultimate authority would reside in the majority of the 
people of he Union; and this authority would be competent at 
all times like that of a majority of every national society, to al- 
ter or abolish its established government. Were it wholly fed- 
eral, on the other hand, the concurrence of each State in the 
Union would he essential to every alteration that would he bind- 
ing on all. The mode provided by the plan of the Convention 
is not founded on either of these principles. In requiring more 
than a majority, and particularly in computing the proportion 
by States, not by citizens, it departs from the national and ad- 
vances toward the federal character. In rendering the concur- 
rence of less than the whole number of States sufficient, it loses 
again the federal and partakes of the national character. 

"The proposed Constitution, therefore, even when tested by the 
rules laid down by its antagonists, is, in strictness, neither a 
national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both. 
In its foundation it is federal not national; in its sources from 
which the ordinary powers of government are drawn it is partly 
federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers it 
is national not federal ; in the extent of them again it is federal, 
not national ; and finally in the authoritative mode of introducing 
amendments it is neither wholly federal nor wholly national. 
(Italics ours)." 

This "test of the Constitution by the rules laid down hv its 
antagonists" has been pronounced by the ablest of critics the 
clearest exposition of that political document ever written. By 
the rules of the National Party every feature of the American 
Constitution was federal, because the product of independent 
States acting together in Convention assembled. With this de- 
cision Vattel agrees. So do all publicists. Moreover, the Na- 
tional party of that day was the Federal pferty thirteen years 
later. 



88 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

So able, so true, and so clear is this exposition of the Consti- 
tution that all replies are evasive and by implication. They are 
not the efforts of those who would throw light upon the Consti- 
tution, but of those who would obscure its meaning. As a 
specimen of these replies we quote from Francis Newton Thorpe 
as follows : 

"Evidently at the very beginning of the movement for a more 
perfect Union, and while yet that Constitution, under which that 
more perfect Union was to be sought, was a proposition before 
the people, they who had led in that movement — and Madison 
was among the foremost — looked upon the Constitution as a 
composite instrument, and upon the Government of which it 
was the general plan as a composite Government, partaking now 
of national, and now of federal qualities, now of both, and the 
whole woven together in a complicated pattern. Moreover, Mad- 
ison, the father of the Constitution, interpreted that instrument 
as leaving a residuary and inviolate sovereignty to the States, 
and as being a compact. He also interpreted the Constitution as 
being supreme in its own sphere. There was therefore a nice 
balance of parts, federals against national, and national against 
federal and leaving to the States large and necessary functions, 
closely approaching, if they did not comprise those of a sovereign 
nature." 

This characteristic reply to Madison quotes not a word from 
his clear-cut exposition of the American Constitution. It omits 
every important fact relating to it. The reader, therefore, is 
furnished with no basis upon which to form an opinion as to its 
merits except Mr. Thorpe's own words. And all these are mere 
declarations, — mere insinuations. 

(1) The first insinuation is .that "a. movement for a more 
perfect Union" meant a Union of a very different character 
from that then existing. On the contrary Madison distinctly 
taught that the second Union, as was the first, would be a Union 
of States, and therefore federal in character, "by the rules laid 
down by its antagonists, as well as by the teachings of Vattel, 
and other publicists. 

(3) The second insinuation is, that "all who led in that move- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 89 

ment — and Madison was among the foremost — looked upon the 
Constitution as composite," and hence upon "the Government as 
composite;" and that this was a very damaging fact. On the 
contrary all legislation by free and independent States in com- 
mon must of necessity be federal and at the same time national 
because the act of States or Nations. And this is all the term 
"composite" means in this connection. They would render the 
proposed Constitution composite only in the restricted sense 
given them by its enemies, when that instrument was a question 
before the people. 

(3) A third insinuation is, that Madison affirmed that the 
Government would be "partaking now of National qualities," 
and at another "now of federal qualities," and at a still differ- 
ent "noiv of both national and federal qualities." Without con- 
tradiction this Chamelion Government is quite original, and 
Madison is not its author. It is the first and last of its kind; 
and exists only in the fertile brain of Mr. Thorpe. It would 
not have existed even there but for the great and pressing nec- 
essity. 

(4) A fourth insinuation is that these alternating govern- 
ments, chameleon-like, without losing their identity, would be 
"woven into a complicated pattern." This and other compli- 
cated absurities find their refutation in the unanswerable words 
of Madison himself as quoted in this chapter. 

(5) A fifth insinuation is, that Madison erred in declaring 
the Constitution, if adopted, would leave "a residuary and in- 
violable sovereignty to the States." All the ratifying ordi- 
nances, referred to in the last chapter, with their 145 proposed 
amendments to the Constitution, an average of more than eleven 
to tlie State, and with their 93 proposed bills of right, an average 
of more than seven to the State, sustain Madison ivith a force of 
expression that will be potent to the last pulsation of time. 

(G) That Madison erred in calling the Constitution "a com- 
pact." If he erred he erred with such authors of the Constitution as 
Gerry of Massachusetts, who said in the Philadelphia Conven- 
tion : "If nine out of thirteen States can dissolve the Compact, 
SIX out of nine will be just as able to dissolve the nezv one:" He 



90 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

erred with Governor Morris, who said in the same Conven- 
tion : "He came here to form a compact for the good of Ameri- 
cans;" with Hamilton in the FederaHst who repeatedly called 
the new Government "a Confederacy," and "a Confederate Re- 
public;' and the Constitution ''a compact." He erred with 
George Washington, the presiding officer of the Convention of 
1787, who called the Constitution "a compact or treaty." He 
erred with Luther Martin of the same Convention, who said: 
"Will you tell us we ought to trust you because you now enter 
into a solemn compact with us?" He erred with the ratifying 
ordinances of all the States, that of Massachusetts expressly re- 
ferring to the States, "as entering into an explicit and solemn 
compact with each other." A volume could be filled with ad- 
ditional quotations of the same character from the authors of the 
Constitution and their most illustrious associates. The time 
was in the early days of this Republic when no one denied that 
the Constitution was a compact. 

(7) He also insinuated that M^adison erred when "he inter- 
preted the Constitution as being supreme in its own sphere," 
that is only "in its own sphere." The same character of evi- 
dence that sustains Madison in correctly terming the Constitu- 
tion a compact, and equally as voluminous, also sustains him 
here. 

(8) Mr. Thorpe's insinuation that there was therefore, a 
nice balance of parts, "federal against national and national 
against federal," is utterly at variance with the facts. There 
is not the least antagonism in the fact, for instance, that the 
Constitution provided that one branch of the Federal Legisla- 
ture should be elected by a direct vote of the people, and the 
other branch by the States in their separate capacities. 

(9) Mr. Thorpe, in his last insinuation, represents that Mad- 
ison interpreted the Constitution as "leaving to the States large 
and necessary functions, closely approximating, if they did not 
comprise those of a sovereign nature." Surely Mr. Thorpe is 
aware that Madison, with Hamilton and Jefferson, and all that 
illustrious host of statesmen, contemporary with the origin of 
the Constitution, accorded to the States full sovereignty as free 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 91 

and independent governmetns. Then why should he say "large 
and necessary functions closely approximating those of a soz>- 
ereign nature?" Why does he not advance boldly to the front, 
quote Madison's own words, and then, in the spirit of a worthy 
coniibatant reply to them? 

Mr. Thorpe should also explain why he ignores, in this con- 
nection, these significant words of Madison : "The difference 
between a federal and a national government, is by the adversar- 
ies of the plan of the Constitution supposed to consist in this, 
that in the former the powers operate on the .political bodies 
(States) composing the Confederacy; the latter on individual 
citizens composing the Nation in their individual capacities." 

It is evident that Mr. Madison does not say there is a dif- 
ference in the terms, national and federal, when applied to the 
American system of Government, but a supposed difference, and 
supposed not by the Federals, but "hy the adversaries of the 
plan of the Convention," that is by the Nationals. Thus Thorpe 
generalizes, hints, and misrepresents. And who is Thorpe? He 
is no less than "Francis Newton Thorpe Ph. D., Fellow, and 
Professor of American Constitutional History in the University 
of Pennsylvania, 1885-1S98 ; Member of the American Histori- 
cal Association, etc. etc. ; author of the Constitutional History 
of the United States; A (State) Constitutional History of the 
American people, 1776-1850 ; a History of the American people 
(Social and Political) ; A School History of the United States; 
A Course in Civil Government ; "Benjamin Franklin and the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania ; the Government of the State of Penn- 
sylvania ; the Life of William Pepper, Provost of the Universi- 
ty of Pennsylvania ; The Spirit of Empires ; The Divining Rod, 
etc. etc." If this man of erudition, — this distinctive author of 
historical works, — is compelled to hedge it must be from the 
want of sustaining facts. 

Mr. Thorpe correctly calls Madison "the father of the Con- 
stitution." He ought therefore, to be verv high authority as 
to the real nature of that instrument. It is well known that Pat- 
rick Henry opposed the adoption of the Constitution on the 
ground that "we the people" in the preamble would be miscon- 



92 KICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

strued by designing politicians to mean "the people in the ag- 
Sfregate." Henry was silenced by Madison's reply, yet voted 
against the Constitution. The reply of Madison was in part 
as follows : 

"Who are the parties to the Constitution? The people, but 
not the people as comprising one great body, but the people as 
comprising thirteen sovereignties. Were it, as the gentleman, 
Mr. Henry asserts a consolidated Government, the assent of a 
majority of the people would be sufficient for its establishment, 
and as a majority has adopted it already, the remaining States 
would be bound by the act of the majority, even if they unan- 
imously reprobated it. Were it such a government, as suggest- 
ed, it would be binding on the people of this State, without their 
having had the privilege of deliberating upon it, but, sir, no 
State is bound by it, as it is, without its consent. Should all 
the States adopt it it will then be a government established 
by the thirteen States of America, not through the intervention 
of the Legislatures, but by the people." This fact alone renders 
the Government Federal, according to all publicists ; and defines 
"we the people." 

As early as 1643, or 133 years before the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence a Congress, known as "The United Colonies of New 
England," was organized by delegates from Massachusetts, Ply- 
mouth, IsTew Haven and Connecticutt. Bancroft tells us "its 
objects were protection against the encroachments of the Dutch 
and French, and security against the tribes of savages ; the lib- 
erty of the Gospel in purity and peace." Its affairs were man- 
aged by a Commission consisting of two from each colony. 
"To each its respective local jurisdiction was preserved." Here 
we find the germ-principle of State-rights that played such a 
prominent and successful part in the framing of the great Amer- 
ican Constitution. Bancroft calls this the first Confederate Gov- 
ernment in America, and declares it "remarkable for unmixed 
simplicity." There was no "president except as moderator of 
the meetings." Massachusetts was superior to all the others 
in wealth, in territory and in population. Yet Massachusetts 
had no greater number of votes than did New Haven, the smal- 
lest. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 93 

The Congress had no executive power. It could decree war 
and levy troops. It remained for the colonies to enforce the 
suggestions of Congress. 

Here we have a Confederacy, or Federal Government, ante- 
dating the Declaration of Independence by one and one-third 
centuries, teaching the advantages of Union for their common 
welfare, yet separate and distinct as families in the same com* 
munity. We see that in their deliberations the Colonies were 
equal ; that the Confederacy was Republican to the core. They 
did not "abandon or compromise the great principle of Commu- 
nity independence." This principle is innate in the human heart. 
It throbs in the hearts of savage tribes and in the communities 
of the learned and civilized alike. It has always been so. Long 
before the Caesars this form of independence had "germinated 
in the German forests." Through "the mailed hand of the Bar- 
ons" it rung "truth and right" from King John at Runnymede. 
It nerved the strong arms and brave hearts of our ancestors 
in the war for our Independence. It was not only sheltered 
and nourished and strengthened in the New England forests, 
but it lived and grew in every true liberty-loving heart through- 
out all the thirteen colonies. Community interests gave a brave 
people self-reliance in 1776. It spoke in the Declaration of In- 
dependence. It was heard in the drum-beat of the Colonies, 
seen in the sufiferings of the fathers. It triumphed with a shout 
when Yorktown fell. It still lives. It is transmitted from 
sire to son. It can never die. Living, its abiding testimony 
is this : The independence of the States is the mightiest factor 
in all this great American Republic; and that this Republic is a 
Confederacy, Federal Union, or Leasiue of States for their ozvn 
mutual zvelfare and common action. 

This fact is so evident, both from the standpoint of history 
and of the Constitution, that no defender of Northern aggres- 
sion bases his defense on the Constitution or the facts of history. 
In the foregoing deceptive plea of Thorpe the Constitution is 
not mentioned as the basis of an argument. Even Edward 
Everett, a man of acknowledged errudition, abandoned the Con- 
stitution, disregarded the facts of history, and appealed to mere 
"dislocated phrases, in his famous 4th of July oration. 



94 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

delivered in New York in 1861. He first goes outside of Amer- 
ica to the British ParHament, for his loose phrases. In the 
days of the immortal Burke there fell from the lips of English 
orators such phrases, as these: "That people," "that loyal and 
respectable people," "this enlightened and spirited people," re- 
ferring to the American Colonies. Everett quotes them in an 
efiFort to show that they (Colonies) constituted "one provincial 
people." If these indefinite phrases, outside of their true con- 
nection, prove anything, they prove too much for Mr. Everett. 
We speak of the people of Europe. Yet Europe is divided into 
Republics, Kingdom and Empires, all separate and independent 
governments. We have referred to the United Colonies of 
New England. The fact that these Colonies were united as 
separate and independent governments for more than a century 
is to history what a light-house standing on the rock-ribbed 
shores of this important section of our country is to the mariner. 
They, too, contradict Mr. Everett. 

But Mr. Everett does not place his entire reliance upon the 
disconnected phrases of the British Parliament. In October 
1774 the Continental Congress addressed a letter to Gen. Gates, 
urging him not to erect fortifications in Boston. That letter 
reads as follows : "We entreat your excellency to consider what 
a tendency this conduct must have to irritate and force a free 
people, hitherto well disposed to peaceable measures, into hos- 
tilities." (American Archives, vSeries 4, Vol. 1, p. 908). The 
proceedings of Congress show that this letter was written to 
"the town of Boston and Province of Massachusetts Bay." "The 
free people," therefore, evidently refers to the town of Boston. 
Yet Mr. Everett applies it to the people of the thirteen Colonies 
in the aggregate. Can there be stronger evidence that even 
Mr. Everett could not appeal to the Constitution^ It is well 
known and universally admitted, that the term, the people, may 
mean a town, as in this case, or any bodv of people whatever, 
not even excluding a congregation. 

Are we mistaken? Does not Mr. Everett after all refer to 
the Constitution? Yes, to its preamble — not to its fundamen- 
tals, and to its preamble only because in it he finds his favorite 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 9o 

term, a people, or "one people." In that preamble are these 
significant words: "When in the course of human events it 
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 
which unite them to another," etc. If the term one people can 
be properly applied only to a number of communities or a number 
of States combined in a common cause, even then his argument 
would be deficient; for these thirteen vStates were not less sep- 
arate and independent States after their Declaration of Inde- 
pendence than they were before. In fact that Declaration de- 
clared them thirteen separate and independent States. In other 
words they were not States, in their own estimation, till after 
they had so declared themselves. But, as we have shown, the 
term "one people," can also be applied with equal propriety to 
States, a State, a city, a to-.vn, a village, or a settlement. Patrick 
Henry knew at least two things, a good argument and selUsh 
human nature. When Madison said, "Were it such a Govern- 
ment as is suggested it woidd nozv he binding on the people of 
Virginia without their having had the privilege of deliberating 
upon it." Henry knew the argument was good. But on the 
other hand he knew the depraved human nature that would in 
coming time control politicians in construing the term, "one peo- 
ple," to the advancement of their greed and ambition. Events 
have shown that he was no less a prophet than a logician. 

Emergencies often render men desperate. There is an old 
saying that "a drowning man will catch at a straw." Mr. Everett 
has caught at three straws, and, like other drowning men, has 
gone down with the rope of safety within easy reach. 

But there is a fact of history that throws additional light on 
this terms, "the people," and ronoves all possible ambiguity. It 
is this : The original language of the preamble, as reported by 
the committee of five appointed to prepare the Constitution, as 
found in the proceedings of August 6, 1787, was, "We the peo- 
ple of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Is- 
land and Providence Plantation, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Car- 
olina, South Carolina and Georgia, do ordain, declare and es- 



96 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tablish the following Constitution for the Government of our- 
selves and our posterity." Here it is in plain terms, "We the 
people of the States." The journal shows that this preamble 
was read before the X^onvention the next day, August 7, 1787, 
and was unanimously adopted. Is this act of the Convention 
meaningless ? 

Yet, the names of the States were stricken. Why? The 
answer is evident: Because upon reflection it was wisely de- 
cided the Convention could not tell in advance what States would 
ratify it. Was it not therefore proper that the names of the 
States be stricken? Was there any other alternative? Yet, 
even this fact has been urged by centralists as a proof that the 
States did not enter into a compact among themselves. Ever- 
ett, and Lincoln and hundreds of other politicians must have 
known the facts. But it is certain the millions of ignorant 
foreigners and the American masses did not. Hence conceal- 
ment and perversions, and substitutes were many and bold. "The 
loveliest thing in life, Tom," for the hard and pressed Republi- 
cans are substitutes for the Constitution. 

From the foregoing it is evident that this Government was a 
league of the States, and therefore Federal to the core. All 
independent Federal governments are Nations and therefore na- 
tional as well as Federal. All independent republics fill cer- 
tain offices by a direct vote of the people. Each State was 
therefore national also from that standpoint, and so was the 
Federal Government. But the national idea, instead of being 
antagonistic to a Federal Government, was in perfect harmony 
wi^^h it. 



CHAPTER VII. 
"THE UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION." 

We have considered the two written Constitutions, the gen- 
uine and the true, — the productions of Statesmen in Conven- 
tions assembled. Under the same masterful hands the one gave 
place to the other. They have received the highest commenda- 
tions from sages of world wide fame. They were definite, 
clear and wise. 

The blush of American civilization is that the greatest politi- 
cal document "ever struck oflf by the mind of man," the Phila- 
delphia Constitution, of 1787, was supplanted by a third Con- 
stitution, "the Unwritten," a Constitution that knew no conven- 
tion hall, that was never subjected to the deliberations of pa- 
triotic statesmen, or was ever honored as the production of the 
deliberations of any assembly of wise men whatever; a Consti- 
tution that, on the other hand, sprang from the brain of fanati- 
cism and unlicensed ambition. False as the whisperings of 
Satan it arrogated to itself all virtues, and walked forth with 
the stride of the Caesars in the garb of truth and fidelity. With- 
out authority it laid claim to all authority. Laying foul hands 
upon the legitimate and long revered document of the Phila- 
delphia Convention, it declared that the teachings of the legiti- 
mate and illegitimate were identical. Unconventional, nnlicens- 
ed, "iimvritten," unlimited, unrestrained, it was the spontan- 
eous production of unreason and madness. Its scepter was 
that of the usurper. Its cruelty was that of the Prince of the 
air, as we shall show at the proper time. 

The attempt to force this bastard of a Constitution, "without 
form and void," on the Southern States against their will, 
brought on the "Great War " For resi.sting this insult these 
States were represented to the civilized world as traitors, con- 
spirators and all other kindred designations. Yet no section, 
not even the North, had sworn fidelity to this bastard. But 
both the North an3 the vSouth had sworn eternal fealty to that 
noblest conception of human governments, the Constitution of 



98 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the Philadelphia Convention, the C&nstitition of 73 years of un- 
broken veneration. 

We have found but one historian who has attempted to de- 
fine or describe it. Nor would he have made the attempt could 
he have found adequate facts within the circle of law to defend 
that most terrible war. That historian is no less than Francis 
Newton Thorpe, Editor of the "Civil War from a Northern 
Standpoint, Vol. 15, p. 161. It will perhaps be of interest to 
the reader to know what that description is. It is in these sig- 
nificant words : 

".'^nd by the Covstitntion is not meant tJiat formal instrument 
or plan of Government formed in Philadelphia in 1787, alone, 
but also the Umvritten Constitution zvhich expresses the state 
of mind in America that determines the color or conduct of pub- 
lic affairs." (Italics ours.) 

This description of this produci! of the imagination — ^this 
burlesque on Constitutions is most wonderful. There is but 
one thing clear or definite about it. That is what it is not — 
"Not that formal instrument or plan of government formed in 
Philadelphia in 1787." This one fact is enough to have as- 
signed it to eternal condemnation. Yet it constituted the basis 
of the war between the North and South. 

The word, "alone," makes no amends. It exhonorates not 
in the least. For if the Constitution of the Philadelphia Con- 
vention was added to by an "unwritten Constitution" the crime 
was as great as if it had altogether supplanted that instrument. 
Unlicensed authority is the same under whatever guise it may 
come. Would Congress or any of the States even think of pro- 
posing an amendment to the Constitution without putting it in 
the form of writing? How much less would the States think 
of adopting a Constitutional amendment not in the definite form 
of writing." But here we have a political party, not simply 
proposing an unwritten amendment, but actually adopting an 
unwritten Constitution for the American people without their 
knowledge or formal consent. Was ever arrogance so bold? 
Was ever treason so arrogant? 

But it is possible that Mr. Thorpe used the word "alone" in 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 99 

connection with the real Constitution for another purpose, viz. : 
that of dignifying the unreal. All must confess that from a 
Northern Standpoint law and facts were wanting and the con- 
ditions desperate — so desperate as even to require the introduc- 
tion of the unwritten Constitution. But the wrong was pal- 
liated at the North, yea cloaked, by associating it with the real 
instrument, — so palliated and so cloaked that it deceived the 
greater part of the greater section of our common Country. 
Otherwise its falacy would 'have exposed it to prompt ridicule. 
Such an anomaly of a Constitution needed all the benefits it 
could receive from something substantial ; — something in which 
the people had confidence ; something for which the people would 
imperil their lives ; something that had a history and a sacred 
memory. 

Did ever cunning plan so well and so well execute? Who 
doubts that the evident intention was to so link the fraudulent 
and "unwritten Constitution" to the true and written instru- 
ment as to make it appear, if not identical with the real at 
least, its most worthy associate — ^an associate not only involving 
all the virtues of the real but, in all probability, conferring on it 
additional worthiness ! Such were the deceptions which char- 
acterized the North, not only in the inauguration of the war, but 
also throughout its continuance. The world can be deceived 
for a time, but not forever. 

Time and circumstances often render shrewd manipulators 
bold. There are times and conditions, too, when most absurd 
fictions are easily passed off on an unsuspecting public as factcs 
It is then the shrewd plotter steps to the front and astonishes 
the civilized world by his boldness, and captivates the simple 
by his display of piety and fidelity. What was bolder than the 
introduction of a purely imaginary Constitution in the Sixties! 
How propitious the times! How propitious the conditions! 
Eight years of "Uncle Toms Cabin" had ushered in the sixth 
decennial of the 19th Century with a wide-spread storm of ex- 
citement. Fiction pure, and unmistakably false, that book was 
regarded as a fact. Politicians lost no time in giving force 
to that storm. While the storm raged exclusively in the North 



100 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

bending, twisting and uprooting the tall timbers of the Consti- 
tution, all lovers of the instrument, both North and South, looked 
on in alarm. 

In this perilous hour what was shrewder than the linking of 
that bogus instrument to the true? What act gave greater ad- 
ditional impetus to the storm than this ! What unmatched 
shrewdness also failed to play its part at every opportune moment 
throughout the war ! Of the many shrewd deceptions practiced 
on the credulous in the North and among the nations, what one 
deception was ever true to the true, or false to the false? 

Let us now examine the final sentence of Mr. Thorpe's de- 
scription. It is these words : "But also the unwritten Con- 
stitution which expresses the state of mind in America that de- 
termines the color or conduct of public affairs." 

"The state of mind in America!" What is it? The phrase- 
ology indicates that it is something definite, something common 
to all parts of all sections in all wide America; and, therefore, 
something that is familiar knowledge throughout all this vast 
American domain. Yet who does not know that especially 
during the fourth, the fifth and sixth decennials of the 19th Cen- 
tury the state of mind among the large proportion of the masses 
in the North was one thing while that of the South was dis- 
tinctly another? Who does not know that the state of mind 
in that exclusively sectional and dominant party of the North 
was ever antagonistic to that of the South? Who does not 
know that in the border States during the Sixties the state of 
mind was almost equally divided, the one being belligerent to- 
ward the other Who does not know that even in the North 
during the Sixties the same state of mind was not universal by 
a great deal? Hence it is not proper to speak of "the State 
. of mind" even in the North during the dark and stormy Sixties. 
Had there been just one state of mind in all sections and parts 
of sections in all vast America there would have been no war — 
no occasion for war. 

It is evident, therefore, that "the state of mind in America" 
was different in all States, and in all sections of the States ; 
in all the Territories and in all sections of the Territories ; and 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 101 

that instead of there being just one state of mind in America 
there were states of mind, and that these were multipHed till 
they were very numerous when we consider the vast domain 
of all America. 

How absurd the assumption that all these different States of 
mind were one and the same! Yet it was by just such assump- 
tions as this that the war was inaugurated and justified. To 
this fact all history testifies, as we shall show at the proper 
time. 

It therefore follows that to single out any one of these many 
states of mind and call it "the state of mind in America" is a 
misstatement of fact; that it is a mere presumption, used as a 
fact for a special purpose. It also follows that a mere false 
presumption used as a fact "determines the color or conduct of 
public affairs" in America. 

A very important question arises here: Who is the presum- 
er that determines the State of mind in America? Whoever 
he be to him all America says with Shakespeare, "Do not pre- 
sume too much upon my love."' It is certain the unwritten 
Constitution does not specify his name, for it has no record. 
In the last analysis the Constitution is the Imagination, simple 
and pure — this, no more and no less. The imagination is the 
one faculty of the human mind that has all illimitable space for 
its field of operation, and infinity for its varieties. Therefore 
"the unwritten Constitution" is susceptible of an infinite num- 
ber of interpretations. 

In as much as "the Unwritten Constitution" does not desig- 
nate its interpreter we shall presume that he is the president, 
the head of the Government throughout which this irregular 
compound of organic law is to be e'xecuted. He is at liberty 
to assume that this government of the imagination embraces all 
the other governments of whatever kind or character. Under 
his fervid imagination he can give to this American Govern- 
ment "the color and conduct" of the most despotic of govern- 
ments." In short he can change "the color or conduct" of the 
government with the ease and rapidity with which he can change 
the subjects of his imagination. 



102 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

This may account for the three American bastiles of the late 
war; for the ease with which the border States were deceived 
and subdued ; for the fact that men were imprisoned on mere 
suspicion and denied the right of trial ; for the fact that Seward 
could boast that by touching a bell on his table he could order 
the arrest of any person he should designate ; and for thousands 
of other acts of despotism not necessary to mention here, but to 
some of which we shall refer later. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IGNORANCE AS TO THE CONSTITUTION AN 
ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE VIOLA- 
TION OF ITS TERMS. 

Ignorance is the greatest menace to a republican form of gov- 
ernment. It invites false constructions of the fundamental law, 
usurpations, "unwritten Constitutions," "higher laws," and a 
flood of other kindred evils. 

The only remedy for these evils is the education of our youth 
in the fundamental doctrines of the Constitution of our Coun- 
try. Without this there is great danger that, in some future 
time, this wide-spread ignorance may be the means of opening 
the floodgates of destruction to our long cherished institutions. 
It was the mightiest factor in the inauguration of the war be- 
tween the two great sections of our common country. With- 
out it there would have been no war. Upon it confidently 
leaned the third Constitution. Upon it the Republican party 
in 1860 confidently promulgated their platform of principles, 
the main plank of which they knew to be in direct conflict with 
the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Upon 
it the dominant party leaned throughout the war, and boldly 
set aeide the Constitution at will, and as boldly assumed both 
autocratic and despotic powers. This we shall prove during the 
discussion of the questions at issue. 

It is an indisputable fact that at least ninety per cent, of the 
people of the United States have but the slightes knowledge of 
the American Constitution. This ignorance is not confined to 
the masses. If we except the legal fraternity it is very doubt- 
ful if even five per cent, of any one class, educated or unedu- 
cated, has ever made a critical study of the Federal Constitu- 
tion with a view to understanding its true meaning. A distin- 
guished Major-General of the Confederate army has said that 
the only time he ever studied the Constitution was while "a 
cadet at West Point, the text-book being Rawl's View of the 
Constitution." 



104 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

The world needs not to be informed that bold perversions 
of the Constitution were made before the war, during the war, 
and since the war. There are not wanting today distinguished 
citizens of this Republic who declare they do not go, in these 
perversions, as far as Lincoln did. 

When these misinterpretations are made by men of national 
reputation they are widely received as the true construction of 
the Constitution. This was true in Lincoln's celebrated Cooper 
Institute speech ; and also in his inaugural address ; and in Ev- 
erett's^fourth of July oration in the Academy of Music, New 
York, in 18^1. As we shall discuss Lincoln's Cooper Insti- 
tute speech and his Inaugural Address separately in other chap- 
ters we shall confine ourselves now to Mr. Everett's oration. 

The Declaration of Independence contains these expressions: 
"One people ; a free, people ; and the good people of the col- 
onies." Mr. Everett deliberatdy detached these words from 
their true connection, and declared that they proved that the 
Declaration of Independence was the act of the whole people of 
the United States en mass, and that therefore this Government 
was a consolidated Government and not a Government of equal 
States on equal terms. To do this he suppressed in the same 
sentence the declaration, three times repeated "that these col- 
onies are free and independent States." Is this species of ar- 
gument worthy the true American statesman? Is perversion 
the weapon of true patriotism? — of true statesmanship? Is an 
argument based on these detached phrases of greater importance 
than the simple declaration three times repeated, "that these 
colonies are free and independent States?" Is an argument 
based on these detached phrases worth anything? Is it not 
absolutely worthless? Yet it was just this species of logic 
that inaugurated the war. The common pleader in our lowest 
courts of justice would think himself disgraced if he should 
stoop to the low level of such logic. Yet Mr. Everett, when the 
great issue before the American people was that of war or 
peace, stooped from the high ideal of an American statesman to 
the low level of an office seeker. 

Was Mr. Everett believed? Yes, by the millions. Had a 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 105 

man of ordinary reputation made such an argument he would 
have been visited with ridicule and scorn. But Mr. Everett 
was a man of eminence, having a reputation nation-wide for 
culture and eloquence. He was ranked among the highest and 
noblest of American statesmen. His name, therefore gave great 
weight to all his utterances upon national questions. He was 
therefore, the less inexcusable. 

Who can justly lay the blame for that war upon the South? 
Were not falsehoods like this borne on every breeze from the 
North? Were they not published in every newspaper, North 
and South? Were they not read in every Southern home? 
Did not every pulsation of the Southern heart manifest the deep- 
est interest in the safety of the Constitution when it was being 
undermined by logic based on mere phrases out of their true 
connection? Was not every political rostrum in the South elo- 
quent with denunciations of this false logic? Under circum- 
stances like these was there not great cause for alarm through- 
out all the Southern States? And where did that cause of 
alarm originate but in the high circles of political influence in 
the North. Did not that cause find its staunchest advocates 
among the Lincolns, the Sewards, the Everetts, and hosts of 
other kindred names equally as distinguished. Is it not now 
universally known that these eminent personages had promul- 
gated bold perversions of the Constitution? Had not the South 
therefore, just cause for believing that if the Constitution was 
to be preserved unimpaired it must be done, or not at all, by 
separation ? 

The ignorance, as to the Constitution, 90 per cent, aforesaid, 
enabled the bold promulgation of another most absurd theory, 
viz : that the United States constituted one consolidated Gov- 
ernment. Its very title, "States United," confutes this theory. 
Besides, if the States had been consolidated into one central gov- 
ernment it would necessarily be a single organization, and re- 
ferred to in the Constitution, its only true expounder, in the 
singular number, as it. But you will search the Constitution, 
in vain, from preamble to finish for anv reference to it in the 



106 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

singular number. The Constitution refers to the United States 
only in the plural sense as "them" and "their" — never as "it." 

If this be true what is meant by the Constitution's mention- 
ing the United States invariably in the plural sense, and never 
in the singular? Does not this plurality of States declare, 
in the most positive of terms that the States form units of asso- 
ciation and not fractional parts of a consolidation? In Art. 

1, of the Constitution are these words: "The President, 

shall not receive, within that period, any other emolument from 
the United States or any of thc^n" — not of "it". . . .In Art. 2 are 
these significant words : "The laws of the United States, and 
treaties made or which shall be made under their authority" — 
not its authority. In Art. 3, we read: 'Treason ngainst the 
United States shall consist only in levying war against them," 
not it, "or in addressing to their enemies" — not its enemies. Is 
the proof of a mathematical proposition more definitely con- 
clusive than this : That the United States did not constitute 
a consolidated Government? Yet, with impunity, the plural 
or associational character of the Government was set aside in 
the Sixties because of the wide-spread ignorance as to the Con- 
stitution known to exist among the people. Should not a study 
of the Constitution of our country hold a similar p^ace in our 
schools to that of the English language and that of the mathe- 
matics? Does not the safety of our Government depend on it? 
Who so bold as to declare there would have been war in the six- 
ties had only fifty or sixty per cent, of our people been familiar 
with the teachings of the Constitution? 

In 1788 and 1789 the Constitution was discussed as never be- 
fore, or since from the Northern boundary of New England 
to the extreme Southern limits of the States, and from the At- 
lantic shores to our utmost western borders. It was the time 
when the States were debating the question of its adoption or 
rejection. It was examined with all that care and criticism the 
jealousy and self-interest of the independent States could give it. 
The States were entering into a compact with each other ; and 
the questions involved were to them of most momentous inter- 
est. A few did not long hesitate. The majority debated ear- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 107 

nestly and long, as we have already shown. Two stood aloof 
till the Government of the Eleven was in full operation with 
Washing-ton at its head. 

In 1788 when the discussion was at its height Mr. Coxe of 
Pennsylvania was asked if "We the People" meant the people 
in the aggregate? His convincing reply was this: "If the 
Federal Constitution had meant to exclude the idea of 'Union,' 
— that is separate sovereign sovereignties joining in a Confed- 
eracy — they would have said, "We the people of America ;" for 
Union necessarily involved the idea of competent States, which 
complete consolidation cxclndes." (Italics ours) — American 
Museum, February 1788). 

This reply of Coxe was to the very critical and very jealous 
States-rights men of Pennsylvania what Madison's was to the 
same class in Virginia — unanswerable. If the States were not 
free and independent they were not competent to form a Union. 
But they did form a Union. Therefore they were free and inde- 
pendent States. No man will deny that Coxe was not right when 
he said, "Complete consolidation excludes the idea of Union." 
Therefore the forming of a Union excludes the idea of consolida- 
tion. Who can dispute that proposition ? 

Again : "If the Federal Constitution consolidated States into 
one aggregate people the State or States rejecting it were in 
rebellion. Rhode Island rejected it for nearly three years ; and 
North Carolina for more than two years. Did the Government of 
the Eleven States declare these two States in rebellion? Did 
Miorris and Hamilton, the two strong and leading centralists 
in the Philadelphia Convention, declare them in rebellion? DID 
any man, anywhere, however his bump of centralism was develop- 
ed, so declare? The whole world is witness that neither the 
Eleven States, nor Morris, nor Hamilton, nor any other person 
did. It therefore follows that they were not in rebellion, and if 
not in rebellion they were but exercising a right peculiarly their 
own. It follows also as an inevitable conclusion that in 1789-90 
the universal opinion was that these States were not in rebellion ; 
and if not in rebellion they were independent and soverign 
States. 



108 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

As the States grew and prospered the Government naturally 
grew and progressed. The nations and people of other climes 
very naturally regarded the Federal Government as the embodi- 
ment of power, splendor, and patronage, and entitled to the su- 
preme consideration. Thus in the eyes of the nations the crea- 
ture of the States was exalted above the States, its Creators. 
As the splendor of the Federal Government, and its power and 
its influence abroad increased the ignorance of the people as to 
the Constitution increased. Centralists knew this. Their oppor- 
tunity was at hand. They delayed not. More than a half 
century had increased the prestige of the Government. The pur- 
poses of its founders were, during this time, more or less ob- 
scured by the influx of foreigners and false logic and false 
facts. Arguments advanced by the scrupulous in the beginning, 
were dragged in 1860 from their places of defeat by the unscrupu- 
lous and were brought forth under the more favorable shadow of 
modern ignorance as to the Constitution. In the beginning they had 
been abandoned as satisfactorily answered. Then they were pre- 
sented and opposed as features of the Constitution that, in the 
hands of designing men, might finally overthrow some of their 
cherished institutions. Now, in the Sixties, they were presented as 
the true expositions of the Constitution, fulfilling the fears of 
such strong federalists as Patrick Henry and others like him. 
What were then opposed as probable dangers to the Government 
were now, in the Sixties, advocated as the Consttiution's true 
meaning and the Government's salvation. 

We have seen with what dexerity Mr. Everett could detach 
phrases from a sentence and yet not give the sentence. We are 
now to consider his logic from another standpoint in the same 
Fourth of July oration. It is not less skillful. He says, "That 
instrument (Constitution) does not purport to be a 'contract,' but 
a Constitution of government. . . . The States are not 
named in it; nearly all the characteristic powers of sovereignty 
are expressly granted to the General Goverment, and expressly 
prohibited to the States," soon repeating the clause, "the States 
are not named in it." 

This bold perversion of the Constitution was doubtless read 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 109 

by John L. Motley and was the basis of his letter to the London 
Times in 1861 on "The Causes of the Civil War." That letter 
from which we now quote is very remarkable for its want of 
facts. In it he says of the Federal Constitution: "It was not 
a compact. Who ever heard of a compact to which there are 
no parties or who ever heard of a compact made by a single party 
himself? Yet the name of no State is mentioned in the whole 
document ; the States themselves are only mentioned to receive 
commands or prohobitions ; and the people of the United States 
is a single party by whom alone the instrument is executed. 

"The Constitution was not drawn by the States ; it was not 
promiulgated in the name of the States ; it was not ratified by 
the States. The States nevei acceded to it ; and possess no power 
to secede from it. It was 'ordained and established' over the 
States by a power superior to the States ; by the people of the 
whole land in their aggregate capacity." 

John Lathrop Motley well knew that the people of England and 
France and Germany and of all Europe knew no more of our 
Government, its Constitution, our laws and our institutions than 
did our citizens know of theirs. At that time the Washington 
government was deeply concerned for fear that England and 
France and Germany, and, perhaps Spain would recognize the 
Confederacy. Some counter influence was in demand. False 
statements were current at home ; why should they not be in 
Europe? The writing of Motley's letter was immediately fol- 
lowed by his appointment to the high and honorable position of 
Minister to St. James's Court. Was that done for a purpose? 
Was that position the price of skill in misrepresenting American 
history and the American Constitution? 

We have said that Motley's letter to the London Times was 
false. We repeat with emphasis that it was false. Who so 
ignorant as not to know that Motley was false in saying "It (the 
Constitution) was not a compact." When Mr. Gerry of Massa- 
chusetts, as a member of the Philadelphia Convention said, "I 
came here to form a compact for the good of Americans," who 
of all that immortal Convention denied that the object of the 
Convention was to form a compact? If that was the object 



110 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

did they not accomplish their purpose? If, then, they accomplish- 
ed their purpose, was not the result a compact? Have we not 
shown that Washington and Hamilton and Madison and Gov- 
ernor Morris and other illustrious names of that Convention re- 
peatedly called it a compact? Did not even Lincoln call it a 
compact in his inaugural address while erroneously declaring it 
required the consent of all the parties to it to annul it? It was 
therefore a compact. 

Thus the term compact was common in the Convention that 
framed the Constitution, and among the illustrious leaders im- 
mediately following the Convention. Whom shall we believe, the 
illusrious names associated with the Convention and the Con- 
vention-times or the Motley man ? If you want the truth told 
you should go to the disinterested and impartial. Men of the 
Motley kind have not the inclination. 

Mr. Motley : "Yet the name of no State is mentioned in it." 
Mr. Everett: "The States are not mentioned in it." If these two 
bold perversionists and voluntary promulgators of information 
had read Sec. 2, Art. 1, of the Constitution they would have 
found the name of each of the thirteen States distinctly men- 
tioned. W^ere they among the 90 per cent Constitutionally ig- 
norant ? 

Motley : "The Constitution was not drawn up by the States." 
All who are at all familiar with delegated powers know better. 
The States were represented by delegates and voted as States. 
The millions of English people, for whom this falsehood was in- 
tended, may not have had any correct idea of delegated authority 
and of the relations of the States to the Federal Government. It 
is certain, however, that it was upon the presumption of their 
general ignorance of the true nature of our Federal Govern- 
ment that these extreme falsehoods of Motley were published in 
the London Times. 

Motley : "It was not promulgated in the name of the States, 
it was not ratified by the States." It ivas both promulgated in 
the name of the States and it zvas ratified by the States. We have 
given full and specific testimony in Chapter five (this book) 
as to the very day each State ratified the Constitution, beginning 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 111 

with little Delaware, on the 7th of December, 1787, and ending 
with Rhode Island on the 29th day of May, 1790, lacking only 
eight days of being just two years and six months between the 
ratification of the first State and that of the last. Yet the people 
of England, and doubtless all of Europe, were told "it was not 
ratified by the States !" Are we to suppose that Motley was so 
ignorant as this? If not what are we to conclude? "The answer 
is near thee, even in thy mouth." It is said that "ignorance is 
bliss." Who can doubt its being bliss to the Administration of 
the Federal Government in the Sixties? 

Motley : "The States never acceded to it, and possess no power 
to secede from it." What is ratifying the Constitution by the 
States but their acceding to the Union? The ratification ordi- 
nances of all the States refutes this bold perversion of fact. 
That Motley could write such a shameless record for himself on 
the page of American history is a mystery and surprise to every 
true and upright American citizen. As to secession, Webster, 
says, "The natural converse of accession is secession ; and there- 
fore when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the 
Union, it may be more plausibly argued that they may secede 
from it." Therefore, according to Web.ster, the States not only 
acceded to the Union but also had the right to secede from it. 

Motley: "It was ordained and established over the States by 
a power superior to the States ; by the people of the whole land 
in their aggregate capacity." We have already shown in a previ- 
ous chapter how Madison silenced the eloquent Henry on this 
question, and in this chapter how Coxe of Pennsylvania, over- 
came the scruples of Pennsylvanians jealous of their State-rights, 
on this point. We have shown that the Constitution itself denies 
it was "ordained and established by a superior power." The 
language of the final article of the Constitution is not that of a 
superior. We repeat it here: "The ratification of nine States 
shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution be- 
tween the States so ratifying the same." 

There must have existed some special cause for these genuine 
falsehoods deliberately fabricated and promulgated so conspicu- 
ously before the gaze of the civilized world. May it not have 



112 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

been to offset the influence of Mason and Slidell? This is a 
pertinent question. There were many Motleys in those days. 
Every breeze from the North was one laden with fiction and 
falsehood. The fictions of Uncle Tom's Cabin begat other 
fictions. The falsehoods of Uncle Tom's Cabin multiplied in the 
atmosphere of unwritten Constitutions and higher laws till they 
boldly crossed the Atlantic, and confronted kings and queens 
and parliaments and other dignitaries in the garb of truth, that 
they might be the means of crushing the loyal South for her zeal 
for the institutions of the Revolutionary sires. All this, and 
more, was done because the great body of the American people 
and those in Europe were ignorant as to the Constitution. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LINCOLN'S CELEBRATED COOPER INSTI- 
TUTE SPEECH. 

New York City, Feb. 27, 1860. 

"This speech was an effort to put the new party, the Republican, 
on Constitutional ground in its attitude to slavery." (The Civil 
War from a Northern Standpoint, Vol. 15, p. 83) — a con- 
fession that it was not on "Constitutional ground." How could 
a Private Citizen place an unconstitutional party on Constitu- 
tional ground? Evidently the Constitution was regarded in a 
very extraordinary light to be subject to the caprice of a political 
party ! 

The Main Plank of the platform of this party was the exclu- 
sion of slavery from the common Territories. The Supreme 
Court in 1857, had declared this restriction unconstitutional. To 
place the Republican party, therefore, on Constitutional ground 
required no less than the reversal of this decision. And who 
could reverse that decision but the Court that had rendered it ? 

The Cooper Institute speech was not even addressed to the 
Supreme Court. Hence it was not an effort to induce that Court 
to reverse its decision. The effort, therefore, whatever it might 
be, was itself unconstitutional. If unconstitutional it was revolu- 
tionary. If revolutionary it was close kin to treason. 

That decision had been rendered three years in advance of 
this speech. It had caused a nation-wide sensation. It was on 
every lip. Lincoln and the Republican party were thoroughly 
alarmed. Something had to be done, and be done at once, or the 
l\.ei)ul lican party was dead. Mr. Thorpe^ from "'A X'onhern 
Standpoint," says, "the immediate need of the new party, the 
Republican, was to place its ideas securely on Constitutional 
ground, for in America no political party can be organized or 
kept together without it." To place its ideas securely on Con- 
stitutional ground" required one of two thujgs: either to change 
its own ideas on the restriction of slavery, or to reverse the Su- 
preme Court's decision. A political party can no more reverse 



114 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

a decision of this Court without revolution than the humblest 
citizen of this Republic. 

This new party proposed neither to reverse its ideas nor to 
change the decision of the Supreme Court. It assumed resources 
of its own, independent of the Constitution. It was now that the 
unwritten Constitution was called upon to do its work, viz : "To 
place the new party, the Republican, on Constitutional ground." 
What legal authority had this great American mystery (the un- 
written Constitution) to fill so high an office? Common sense 
answered none. The Philadelphia Constitution answered, none. 
The practice and history of this Republic for three-fourths ot a 
century answered, none. The history and teachings of all gov- 
ernments, other than those of a despotic character, answered in 
thunder tones, none. But the new party replied. We have some- 
thing new, something mysterious, in the way of a Constitution — 
wonderful in its perfections. "It expresses the state of mind in 
America which determines the conduct or color of public affairs." 
(The Civil War from a Northern vStandpoint, Vol. 15, p. 84.) 
Whatever else that means it evidently meant, in the Sixties, that 
the new party intended to establish a standard of government 
other than that of the Constitutional Union of the American 
States. 

In this supreme hour all eyes of the new party turned to 
Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Seward excelled him in erudition, but 
in scheming Lincoln had no peer. If any man could give to the 
unwritten Constitution "the color or conduct of public afifairs" 
Lincoln was that man. He was, therefore, singled out and in- 
vited to New York to make the all imiportant speech, upon the 
success of which hung the destiny of the new party. Great was 
the occasion ! Great the task ! and great the responsibility ! Cor- 
respondingly great was the conspicuous honor ! Doubtless Lincoln 
accepted the flattering distinction with some degere of trepidation. 
But there was an emergency, created by the Supreme Court's de- 
cision, and, if successful, doubtless, a great reward was in store 
for him. 

The 27th day of February, has come. Lincoln is in New York 
City. He stands before a vast and attentive audience seated in 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 115 

the Cooper Institute. Difficult is his task. It is no less than 
that of annulling the decision of the Supreme Court of the nation, 
the final arbiter of all law-abiding citizens. As when weakness 
combats strength evasion is ever the best policy, so now Lincoln 
evades the main issue. 

He waves the Constitution to one side. That is not to be 
his theme. He takes for his text, not any words of the Consti- 
tution, but these words of Douglas : "Our Fathers When They 
Framed the Constitution Under Which We Live, Understood 
This Question As Well As We, Or Even Better Than We Do 
Now." 

He does not pause to explain, but shrewdly and frankly ad- 
mits what Douglas says is true. This bold stroke of policy 
rivets the attention of his audience by its very surprise. The 
novelty of the occasion is also sensational. Men and women 
are there curious to know what tactics, what line of argument 
is to be used to cancel the decision of the highest judicial tribunal 
in the land. No man is able to guess. No other living man 
is bold enough to advance such an illogical line of argument. 

Without being Constitutional in the least, with a matchless 
shrewdness, he played well the part of one altogether Constitu- 
tional. Mr. Thorpe from " ANorthern Standpoint," writing forty 
years later, says, "It was not a discussion of the Constitutional- 
ity of slavery, for that had been settled." It was simply a 
feigned attempt to show that "A majority of the signers of the 
Constitution had disclosed their real sentiments by the records 
they had made whenever the question had come before them:" 
(The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint. Vol. 15, p. 102). 
(Italics ours.) 

We call upon the American people in this age of enlightenment 
to know if this line of argument, in such a crisis as that of the 
Sixties, yea in any crisis, is not a surprise to them? The writer 
confesses it is to him. If this line of argument, advanced in 
1860, is a surprise to the people of to-day, we have to remind 
them that equally as great, if not greater, surprises await them 
in the development of that argument. We are confident that we 
shall show, beyond the possibility of successful contradiction, 



116 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

that Lincoln was not justified in the counting of one of all the 
signers of the Constitution he named as having "disclosed" their 
sentiments in favor of excluding slavery from the commen 
territories. We are also confident that had he "disclosed" the 
votes of all the signers of that matchless instrument of the Phila- 
delphi'a Convention, his argument would have been absolutely 
worthless from the standpoint of logic and justice. 

That we may be clear in our statement of facts we now give 
Lincoln's position on this occasion in a nutshell. There were 39 
signers of the Philadelphia Constitution, He assumed that if 
he could shozv that a majority of the 39 signers on different occa- 
sions, under different circumstances, and influenced by different 
motives, had disclosed their opposition to the admission of slaves 
into the common Territory of all the States, he woidd thereby 
prove the Dred Scott decision zvas nul and void. Was ever a prop- 
osition more absurd? Yet this proposition is on a par with his 
method of counting that majority. 

We now appeal to the facts. Under the first Confederation, 
and for at least twenty-five years under the Philadelphia Con- 
stitution, there was no slave-question in a political sense. Up to 
that time slavery was treated as an established institution. It 
was discussed as dispationately as any other question. The first 
political anti-slavery party was organized in Convention at 
Albany, New York, in November, 1838, and was called the 
Liberty party. It nominated James C. Birney of New York for 
president, and Francis Lemoyne of Pennsylvania for vice presi- 
dent. These nominations were made two full years in advance 
of the regular presidential election, yet Birney and Lemoyne re- 
ceived the very small vote of 7,059 throughout all the States. 
Thus, even as late as 1838, the question of slavery, as a political 
factor was absolutely insignificant. How much less significant 
a few years earlier ! All the signers of the Constitution counted 
by Lincoln in this speech, except three, "disclosed" their votes 
between the years 1784 and 1789, from 49 to 54 years earlier 
than 1838, when Birney and Lemoyne were nominated, and 51 
to 56 years earlier than when these candidates could muster but 
7,059 votes. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 117 

We now come to Lincoln's "disclosures." ( ?) In 1784, during 
the first Confederation, three years before the Philadelphia Con- 
vention that framed the Constitution, and five years before 
the States had ratified it, Virginia, a slave State, ceded to the 
Union her vast possessions, north of the Ohio river, known as the 
Northwest Territory, on condition "that slavery should be forever 
excluded from the same." Here we have a slave-holding State, 
believing in the absolute right of any citizen of any State to 
take any species of his property to any one of all the Territories 
belonging to all the States in common, donating to the States 
United this vast Territory, making but one condition, and that 
condition was that slavery shoidd be forever excluded from within 
it\S limits. If a vote to accept the gift of this great domain, out 
of which five States and a part of another have since been formed, 
was a vote against slavery, then Virginia was anti -slavery. But 
who does not know this contradicts fact? It therefore follows 
that a vote for this measure did not disclose that the voter was 
anti-slavery. If it disclosed any fact at all it was that there was 
then no slavery question in Congress, or among the American 
people. But Lincoln declared the question was that of slavery ; 
and that "four of the 39," who, three years later, signed the 
Philadelphia Constitution, "were members of this Congress and 
voted ; and that three of these voted for this measure." Are we 
surprised when history informs us that Lincoln counted these 
three signers as anti-slavery men? men who advocated the con- 
trol of slavery by the Federal Government? Yes, for history also 
declares that the measure was discussed as one in the house of its 
friends — dispassionately. Not only was the measure considered 
dispassionately but the very atmosphere of the times was dis- 
passionate. 

But if the utmost stretch of the imagination could find the 
question of slavery involved in this measure, even then it could be 
nothing more than a special case confined to a special Territory, 
and based on a special condition. Hence from whatever stand- 
point the question is viewed Lincoln had not the shadow of an 
excuse to count these three names. 



118 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Three years later, in 1787, before the adoption of the Fed- 
eral Constitution, an ordinance for the government of this Terri- 
tory was introduced in Congress at the request of Virginia. It 
contained six articles of compact. As an evidence of good faith 
the last article contained the condition on which the Territory 
had been ceded by Virginia, as follows: "That there shall be 
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory 
other than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall 
be duly convicted." The question of slavery had already been 
settled by Virginia in ceding it, and by the Congress in accepting 
it. There is no possible evasion of this conclusion. Mr. Thorpe 
from "A Northern Standpoint" affirms this in these words : "The 
ordinance received support North and South, delegates from the 
free States and from the slave-States voting for it. . . . And 
the fugitive slave-law in the ordinance received the unanimous 
support of the members." (Vol. 15, p. 102). 

It requires no great legal lore to see that the question of 
slavery was not involved in the least. If we adopt Lincoln's 
method of reasoning, if a vote on this measure "discloses" any- 
thing, it "discloses" that the voter became very strongly pro- 
slavery when he later signed that very strong pro-slavery docu- 
ment, the Constitution of the Philadelphia Convention. Why not 
count this second "disclosure" as favoring the Constitution? 

There were two signers of the Constitution in this Congress, 
both from the South. These were William Blunt of Tennessee 
and William Few of Georgia. In spite of the facts Lincoln counted 
Blunt and Few. Did "the special need of the new party, the Re- 
publican" and the great emergency render his mind so "Blunt"^ 
that he could not comprehend the very evident meaning of that 
unanimous vote? Or did he deliberately disregard the sig- 
nificance of this vote for fear his "disclosures" would be too 
"Few"? Who says truth and right were vindicated in this 
count? Was ever deception more craftily practiced? If possi- 
ble, it was in these next words of his : 

"In 1789 the first Congress under the Constitution enacted 
a law enforcing the ordinance of 1787, including the anti-slave 
clause in it. Thomas Fitzsimmons, one of the 39, from Pennsyl- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 119 

vania, reported the bill, which passed without opposition, and in 
the Congress which passed it were sixteen of the 39. . . . 
George Washington, also one of the 39, was president of the 
L^nited States, and he approved the measure by signing it." By 
Lincoln's own words this bill "passed without opposition," — that 
is unanimously. And yet ! and yet ! Lincoln counted these 17, If 
a vote for this bill meant a vote to exclude slavery from all the 
Territories, then that whole Congress believed in the right of 
the Federal Government to exclude slavery from these Terri- 
tories. But this contradicts universal fact. All know that Con- 
gress believed no such thing. More than this, all know that 
up to this time, 1787, the year the Constitution was discussed 
from preamble to finish as never afterward, tha<" no man who 
had respect for his good name and sacred honor was bold enough 
to make such a declaration. That theory was the fiction of a 
much later date. Had such an idea been advanced in 1788-89 
with the least plausability of its being true, it is the universal 
conviction that the Philadelphia Constitution Avould not have 
been adopted. Lincoln must have known that this identical Con- 
gress, on the 12th of February 1790, by a definite resolution de- 
clared unanimously that the question of slavery belonged ex- 
clusively to the States. This was just nine months and twelve 
days after the inauguration of Washington. It was in response 
to a petition headed by Franklin, "having for its object the 
final abolition of the slaves in the States." If this unanimous 
vote had any meaning it was that the States had denied to the 
Federal Government the right to interfere with this particular 
institution. It was but natural that the slave-States in the fram- 
ing of the Constitution should have demanded Federal non- 
interference with this institution. It was absolutely necessary 
for their comfort, prosperity, peace, happiness and safety. It is 
needless to say that without this Constitutional protection of 
slavery there w^ould have been no l^nion of the 13 original States. 
All historians, North and South, admit this. Th?t this protec- 
tion was not confined to the Southern or slave-States, is evi- 
denced bv "the fugitive-slave law," incorporated in the Constitu- 
tion. If the Constitution threw its protecting shield over this 



120 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

institution, even within the Hmits of the independent free States 
of the North, by what possible logic, other than that based on 
false facts and fraud, could it be hoped to reverse the Supreme 
Court's decision as to its protection within the Territories, the 
joint property of all the States? And what shall be said of his 
deceptive and fraudulent disclosures? What, too, shall be said 
of his false logic as to these disclosures, even if they had been 
all he claimed for them ? Did ever logic like this, before, emanate 
from the brain of any man except that of a madman? 

But Lincoln is not through with his disclosures. He says, 
"In 1804 Congress organized the Louisiana Territory, forbade 
the importation of slaves into it from foreign ports. The bill 
passed without yeas and nays Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan 
Dayton of New York, were members of this Congress and prob- 
ably voted for the bill, no evidence to the contrary existing." 
Lincoln counted Baldwin and Dayton though, "very probably" 
voted against the bill, "no evidence to the contrary existing." He 
not only claimed to have disclosed two names as unfriendly to 
slaverv upon a mere probability but was also deceptive as to the 
meaning of this section in the bill, which "forbade the importa- 
tion of slaves into it from foreign parts." That was the one 
basis of his argument that this bill was strongly anti-slavery. 
Yet, was not Virginia the first of all the States to forbid the 
importation of slaves from foreign parts? Did not South Car- 
olina adopt a similar measure ? Was not Georgia the first of the 
States to incorporate this prohibition in her organic law? 

Lincoln attempts in this speech but one other "disclosure" per- 
haps with no better success. In 1820, no less than 33 years after 
the signing of the Constitution, the admission of Missouri into 
the Union as a State was a question before Congress. To the 
bill a proviso had been attached, prohibiting slavery, or involun- 
tary servitude, within the same. Against this proviso every 
Southern Senator and Southern Representative voted. It was, 
however, carried in the House, but was disputed in the Senate. 

Then followed a bill to admit the new State without restriction, 
to which was added a section forever prohibiting slavery in that 
portion of the Territory North of 36 degrees, 30 minutes North 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 121 

latitude, except Missouri. This constituted the celebrated Mis- 
souri Compromise. Every Northern man in the Senate, except 
two from Indiana, voted for it. Fourteen out of 23 Southern 
Senators and 39 out of 76 Southern Representatives also voted 
for it. The Southerners voting for it did so in the true spirit of 
compromise to save the Union from disruption. Those voting 
against it did so because they believed it unconstitutional; and 
that a deliberate violation of the Constitution was like opening 
the flood-gates of destruction. As the sequel proved these were 
right, and those were wrong. 

If the question of slavery was at all involved in this measure it 
was as a minor part. Did not that very eminent statesman, 
George Cabot write to Senator Pickering of Massachusetts in 
reference to this compromise that, "The influence of our part of 
the Union must be diminished by the acquisition of more weight 
at the other extremity?" (Life and Letters of George Cabot — 
C. H. Lodge, p. 334). A few days after the adoption of this 
Compromise did not the Honorable Samuel A. Foote, of Connect- 
icut, say on the floor of the House, "The Missouri question did 
not involve the question of freedom or slavery, but merely wheth- 
er slaves now in the country might be permitted to reside in the 
new State; and whether Congress or Missouri had the power to 
decide." 

Besides 30 years later, in 1850, when Lincoln was on his first 
political legs, the identical question, in the shape of a bill to 
continue the line of the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific, was 
before Congress. How did the vote then stand? The "dis- 
closure" is that there was a complete reversal. Every vote against 
it was from the North in both the Senate and House, while every 
vote for it was from the South. What importance now is to be 
given to the disclosing of votes? Even JeflFerson Davis voted 
for it in 18.50 on the ground that "the act had received such rec- 
ognition and quasi-ratification by the people of the States as to 
give it a value which it did not originally posses. "Pacifica- 
tion had been the fruit of the tree, and it shoula not nave oeen 
recklessly hewed down and cast into the fire." (Davis). 



122 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Nevertheless in the Congress of 1820 were Rufus King of 
Maine, and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, two of the 39 
signers of the Constitution. King voted for the Compromise 
and Pinckney against it. Thus Rufus King is "disclosed" as hav- 
ing voted for two compromises. The first was that of the Great 
American Charter of Rights, the Constitution of 1787, about 
which, as a compromise, there is no question either North or 
South. The second is that of the Missouri Compromise, whose 
title does not betray its true character — that of a settlement of 
difference by mutual concessions. 

Thus we have followed Mr. Lincoln through all his so-called 
disclosures. We have shown that all his disclosures, without ex- 
ception, are unreal and false ; and if real and true they are worthy 
less. But Mir. Lincoln with his characteristic boldness and dis- 
regard of facts declares to the contrary as follows: "Thus on 
the question of Federal Control as to slavery from 1784 to 1829, 
twenty-three of the 39 signers of the Constitution recorded them- 
selves as in favor of such control." (The Civil War from a 
Northern Standpoint, Vol. 15, p. 103). These words either show 
his ignorance of facts or his deft concealment of facts. His 
next words show either his ignorance of the Federal Constitution 
or his treacherously undoing the teachings of that instrument. 
They are these : "A clear majority of the whole dearly under- 
stood that no proper division of local from Federal Authority, 
nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Govern- 
ment to control slavery in the Federal Territories, while all the 
rest had the same understanding." What is to be thought of 
the man aspiring to be President of the United States who did 
not know that the very silence of the Constitution was its strong- 
est declaration of its prohibition of authority to the Federal Gov- 
ernment? Such ignorance is wonderful. It is only equaled by 
its audacity ! // this be not ignorance every epitheth applied by 
Lincoln and others to the South during the war may be applied 
to the treachery of the orator on this occasion. 

What is to be thought of an intelligent audience in the metro- 
polis of America that became so enthused by the statement of 
false facts, by false construction of the Constitution, and by 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 123 

the worst possible logic, as to applaud the speaker to the very- 
echo? What is to be thought of the average intelligence of the 
American people that permitted to go unchallenged the declara- 
tion that such a speech, with all its false assertions and false 
olgic, ranks with the best efforts of the great Webster'^ It was 
the madness of the zeal of Lincoln on the slavery question that 
won out that night. It was not fact. It was not reason. It was 
not law. 

On that night in the Cooper Institute Lincoln appeared in the 
role of x'Xn Actor. The title of the play was "An Effort to place 
the Republican Party on Constitutional Ground," — a mere dream. 

What a picture is this of "honest Abe" in a new role! On 
his brow sits Candor ! In every word is the ring of truth ! In 
every act is aggressive Earnestness! Himself the personifica- 
tion of all that is noble, exalted and true, his success is wonder- 
ful — magical ! Completely successful, he is greeted with ap- 
plause upon applause, and is proclaimed a prince among the princes 
of oratory. Laurel-crowned, his triumph widens ! Hero of 
the Republican Party, all other names do obeisance to his. He 
steps from the Stage the nominee of the Republican Party, for 
president. Alas ! that the cruel hand of history should lift the 
veil! 



CHAPTER X. 

THE COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH 
CONTINUED. 

It is a very remarkable fact that Mr. Lincoln now assumed 
that he had "disclosed a majority of the 39, "including George 
Washington, who were untrue to their convictions when formu- 
lating and signing the Constitution of 1787. The wonder grows 
when it is remembered that the Philadelphia Convention consist- 
ed of statesmen, the acknowledged peers of the noblest, the ablest, 
the purest, the best the world has ever known. It is no small 
matter to impugn names like these, — great and illustrious names, 
that gave to the world that matchless charter of human rights 
and human liberty, known as the American Constitution. When 
it is realized that some of these great names "disclosed" their 
true characters in advance of the Philadelphia Convention, and 
some after that Convention had given to the world its best model 
of government, the very acme of assurance and absurdity is 
reached. Are not such accustaions as these born of some Con- 
stitutional defect rather than of sound reasoning? Besides, by 
what means did Lincoln determine when these men were sincere? 
Or how did he know when they voted their true convictions ? 

That he may be the more effective Lincoln in this speech imag- 
ines, for a time, that the Cooper Institute assembly is a truly 
Southern audience, and proceeds to address it as such. 

Anticipating the South's just demands, as to her Constitutional 
rights, he says, "But you will not break up the Union rather than 
submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights?" What is the 
meaning of this question? Does it not mean that his policy, 
and that of his party will be to antagonize the decision of the 
Supreme Court? that to anagonize this decision is absolutely nec- 
essary to put the new party "on Constitutional ground?" 

As if fearful that this sentence may be construed as disloyal 
to the Constitution, and the Federal Government, he immediate- 
ly adds: "When you make these declarations you have a spe- 
cific and well understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 125 

right of yours to take the slaves into the Federal Territory and 
hold them as property." Does he not know that what he terms 
"an assumed Constitutional right of yours" has been placed be- 
yond the pale of mere assumption by the Supreme Court? He 
knows it. Must we question his motives? He breathes not 
again before these other crafty words follow : "But no such 
right is specifically written in the Constitution." Does he not 
know that one of the best established facts about the American 
Constitution is this: That what it omits is just as important, 
(and often more so) as what it contains? Does he not know 
that what is "Specifically written in the Constitution" refers to 
the Federal Government and its authority, and all the rights 
"not written" in it refers to the States and their authority? Will 
Lincoln never learn that the Philadelphia Constitution is like no 
other Constitution, that it confers no authority whatever on the 
Federal Government except what the States in convention as- 
sembled saw fit to give it, and that in "specifically written" 
terms f 

We call these words of Lincoln "crafty" because "the right of 
property" does not depend on its being written in the Constitu- 
tion. Long before this decision of the Supreme Court had dis- 
turbed his dreams and those of his party, Alexander Hamilton 
had said: "The Federal Constitution" — mark the words, "the 
Federal Constitution" — "therefore decides with great propriety on 
the case of our slaves when it views them as in the mixed char- 
acter of persons and property. This is in fact their true char- 
acter, bestowed on them by the laws under which we live," (The 
Federalists. No. 53, Davidson's Edition, p. 379). 

Note, Hamilton states this as the conclusion of commonly ad- 
mitted facts, and not in the spirit of controversy. Did not Lin- 
coln know that everv State in the Union, North and South, also 
regarded slaves as property for more than 100 years? Did he 
not know the Northern slavers and the Northern slave-markets, 
as well as its existence in the South, proclaimed it such ? Had 
not slavery existed from time immemorial, and, when during all 
that time was it not rightfully regarded as property? Yet who 
can say that, during any part of that long period, it was written 



126 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

in the American Constitution? Nor did Hamilton say it was 
written in the Constitution. 

Lincoln's one great fundamental false dogma was, w'hat is not 
written in the Constitution belongs to the Federal Government. 
No other living man of eminence would have made such a state- 
ment. A great Constitutional lawyer like Webster, or Clay, 
or Calhoun would have been incapable of making it. It would 
not have been made by Lincoln but for the emergency. More 
than a million of his party followers stood ready to indorse any 
utterance he might make for the vast majority of them knew as 
little of the Constitution as they did of the Chinese language. 
Hundreds of newspapers also were ready to herald his remarks 
as the efforts of a master mind, while the South read and listened 
with alarm. 

He next goes a step further, and says, "But we, on the other 
hand, deny any such right has any existence in the Constitution, 
even by implication." The Supreme Court may declare that 
the reserved rights of the States give you "the right to take 
your slaves into the Federal Territory and to hold them as prop- 
erty," but we on the other hand deny that any such right has 
any existence in the Constituion, even by implication." Let 
it not be forgotten that the Supreme Court of the United States 
with its decision is on the one hand, and the "But ive" with his 
decision is on the other. On which end is the weight? When 
one end of that beam goes down if Lincoln doesn't hit the stars 
it will not be the fault of his egotism. 

Proceeding Lincoln says, "When the obvious mistake of the 
judges shall be brought to their notice is it not reasonable that 
they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the 
conclusion?" The Obvious Mistake! Mark it well. For if 
it is a mistake at all, it is the mistake of no ordinary set of men : — 
of men whose duty it is to find mistakes and correct them — not 
to make them. What a spectacle is this ! Here stands a man 
fresh from the wilds of Illinois before an audience of the great 
American Metropolis, assuming that his legal lore is greater 
than that of the Supreme Court of this Great Republic, of Repub- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 127 

lies. He says to this Court. "A little learning is a dangerous 
thing. Drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring." 

He ridicules the Court's decision as "The Obvious Mistake," 
yet he does not point out that "Obvious Mistake." He asks 
"when the obvious mistake of the judges shall be brought to 
their notice is it not reasonable that they will withdraw the mis- 
taken statement, and reconsider the conclusion?" and yet he 
makes no attempt to bring the "Obvious Mistake" to the notice 
of the judges. However he may deride this decision, what- 
ever be the grounds he may state for their correcting it, there 
is one well established fact which ndmit.^. of no discussion. It 
is this : Just as soon as that Court's decision was published 
it became the law of all the States of all the Union. Whoever 
then disobeys that law is disloyal to the compact of the States, — 
that is to the Union. No mathematical demonstration is clearer. 
Is not the burden of this speech against the law? We beg to 
say that the Supreme Court made no "obvious mistake," but that 
it pointed out with such consummate clearness "the obvious mis- 
take" of the Republican Party as to render necessary the assem- 
bling of the Republican clans in the Cooper Institute on that 
occasion. We also beg to say that no denunciations of the Su- 
preme Court by any one, and especially by a political speaker 
with no responsibility, can annul this law reaching into every 
Tiamlet and every district of every State in this great American 
Union, 

Chief-Justice Taney, the scholar, the statesman, and the jur- 
ist, rendered this decision. Of what breach of clearness was he 
guilty, that "its own freinds differed one with another as to its 
meaning?" Of what breach of fact was he guilty, that it was 
called the "obvious mistake?" The following correct summary 
of the salient points of this celebrated decision, as made by an 
eminent statesman and author, is herewith given for the satis- 
faction and enlightenment of our readers, viz: (1) That the per- 
sons of the African race were not and could not be acknowledg- 
ed as 'part of the people,' or citizens under the constitution of the 
United States ; 



128 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

2. "That Congress had no right to exclude citizens of the 
South from taking their negro servants, as any other property, 
into any part of the common Territory ; and that they were en- 
titled to claim its protection therein ; 

3. "As a consequence of the principles above stated, that the 
Missouri Compromise of 1820, in so far as it prohibited the ex- 
istence of servitude, north of a designated line was unconsti- 
tutional and void." 

]t was this keen blade laid at the roots of the newly planted 
tree of the new party that rendered necessary the gathering of 
the Republican clans in New York City in 1860. It threatened 
to leave neither root nor branch of that political tree; and shall 
we say it ? — the patriotism of the new party was not equal to the 
emergency. 

The Supreme Court had been for three years in making this 
decision. All tl at time the entire country had hoped that the 
the decision of the ultimate authority in the interpretation of 
Constitutional questions would put a quietus to the troublesome 
controversy that had so long disturbed the peace of the land, 
and had so often threatened the perpetuity of the Union, but the 
Republic was doomed to a sad disappointment. Instead of ac- 
knowledging the decision as binding it was ridiculed, it was de- 
nounced, and utterly disregarded by Lincoln and his co-ad juta- 
tors. These are stern facts. They better become conspirators 
than patriots. They blacken the page of history. They were 
the mutterings of the coming storm that deludged the land in 
blood. 

What hope for justice, what assurance for peace, what guar- 
antee for safety, did this defiant, open, disloyal disregard for the 
highest authority of the Government afford the South ? Who are 
the rebels here? Who here bids defiance to Governmental au- 
thority? Even the great Lincoln is not exempt. He stands 
at the head of more than a million of voters, ready to follow where 
he leads. Whoever rebels against a decision of the Supreme 
Court rebels against the Constitution, and whoever rebels against 
the Constitution rebels against his country. These are the ut- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 129 

terances of facts. They are not the fabrications of a Southern 
soldier. 

We beg to say rig^ht here that the South, as a section of this 
country, never did rebel against a decision of the Supreme Court, 
nor against any authoritative construction of the Constitution 
v/hatever. But it was against just such open and avowed disre- 
gard of the Constitution, as we witness right here, that the South 
revolted. If Lincoln and his party were untrue to the authori- 
tative voice of one of the three great fundamental departments 
of the Government, what confidence could the South, place in 
their future fidelity as to the other two great fundamental de- 
partments? 

Had the South no cause for alarm? Was Lincoln's ques- 
tion an idle one when he asked, "But you will not break up the 
Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional 
rights?" Was not the very platform of the new party openly 
and defiantly against the Constitution? Could the South ex- 
pect a constitutional administration of the Government on an 
avowed unconstitutional platform? Did not the success of this 
exclusively sectional political party in the North array more 
than one million of voters against this decision of the Supreme 
Court, and hence against the Constitution? After the success 
of this party at the polls were not all its utterances against this 
Court's decision ? These are facts that will not down. Actors 
in great national crises may cover their transactions for a time 
but the ruthless hand of the future will remove the rubbish, expose 
all false claims, and crown truth with immortal verity. When 
that time shall come the true defenders of the Constitution will 
be known, and among them will be "the solid South," shining like 
a polished gem. 

If further evidence is wanting that Lincoln in this speech 
is aligning his party against the Constitution, the evidence is 
forthcoming. He says, "'Under all these circumstances, do you 
really feel yourselves justified to break up the Government un- 
less such a court's decision as yours is shall be at once submitted 
to as a conclusive and final rule of political action^" Is this 
the language of loyalty to the Court's decision ? Does he not 



130 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

contemptuously term it the South's decision when he says, "do 
you really feel yourselves justified to break up the Government 
unless such a decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to?" 
Is not every word a dagger-thrust at the Government through 
opposition to this decision? 

He next tauntmgly says, "But you will not abide the election 
of a Republican ! In that event you say you will destroy the 
Union ; and then you say the great crime of having destroyed 
it will be upon us." 

To this the South replies she h?s no objection to the term, 
republican, in its true and honorable sense ; but to the term mis- 
applied and used in a sense rebellions to the Constitution and 
Government, she has most serious objection ; and that your re- 
bellion against the decision of the Supreme Court is itself but 
destructive of the Union ; and you speak according to truth when 
you say "the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon 
us." (vou). More than sixty-two years have so charged, and 
more than sixty-two times sixty-two years will continue to charge 
"the great crime" upon you and your party. The facts — all 
the facts — of history testify that had you been trvie to this de- 
cision, had you in this speech proclaimed your undying devotion 
to this decision as one of the established laws of the common 
country, the South would have hailed you as a friend, would 
have lauded you as a patriot, and would have mistrusted you 
never. But, on the contrary, you denounced this decision as 
"a sort of decision," and "such decision as yours is," and other- 
wise derided it and opposed it. Even after you had been elected 
president upon this platform of open rebellion against the Con- 
stitution and hence against the Government — had you even then 
retracted these words as the inconsiderate utterances of a politi- 
cal speaker, on a political occasion, when excitement ran high, 
and that henceforth you would be unwaveringly true to this de- 
cision of the Supreme Court with its full meaning as interpreted 
by the Constitution and the Government, the South would have 
been as loyal to your administration as any section of this great 
American Union. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 131 

We know that while you were in your defiant mood against 
the Court's decision you craftily used these other words: "It is 
exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy 
shall be at peace and in harmony one with another." To your sym- 
pathizers these were doubtless conciliatory words, but to the 
South who knew your deadly enmity against this decision they 
were firebrands. To the South "peace" and "harmony" were 
not the ofif-springs of violated law. She regarded the Constitu- 
tion as a sacred compact between the States ; and that all the 
States were oath-bound to obey its behests. She knew that in all 
questions of dispute among the States this same sacred com- 
pact between the States made the Supreme Court the 
one arbiter of the right ; and whea this Court had once 
decided a disputed question it was rebelliously disloyal not to 
abide its decision. As the States had agreed upon only the one 
arbiter of the right there was but the one way to bring about 
"the exceedingly desirable" fact "that" all parts of this great 
Confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony one with another," 
and that one way was no other than that provided in the Federal 
Constitution, viz. : By submitting all questions of dispute to the 
Supreme Court, and then abiding in all fidelity that Court's de- 
cision. That Lincoln failed to do this his entire Cooper Insti- 
tute speech testifies. Ought a man to expect "peace" and "harm- 
ony" by violating the only pledge of peace and harmony among 
the States? Should we expect "peace" and "harmony" by boldly 
and defiantly rebelling against the machinery of the Government. 
Turning now to the North he asks : "Will the Southern people 
be satisfied if the territories be unconditionally surrendered to 
them? We know they will not. In all their present com- 
plaint against us the territories are scarcely mentioned." Anoth 
er touch of strategy is this. He knows the Southern people 
have never demanded more than the Common Constitution grant- 
ed them. To have "the territories surrendered to them uncon- 
ditionally" would be beyond the limits of their Constitutional 
rights. He spoke truly when he said, "We know they will not." 
If there is any one peculiar characteristic about the Southern peo- 



132 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

pie it is their love of honor and fair dealing. They would re- 
ject such a proposition with the contempt it deserves. 

It is a sad confession he makes when he acknowledges the 
South has many complaints "against us," the Republican party. 
Why does he here turn aside to misrepresent the South to the 
North in these words : "In all their present complaints against 
us the territories are scarcely mentioned?" Does he not know 
that nothing so agitates the country at this very time as does 
the question of the territories? Does not the Dred Scott de- 
cision hinge on it? Does not the Cooper Institute occasion de- 
pend on it? Is he not now here denouncing and deriding this 
decision because it affirms rights as to the territories denied 
by him and his party? Is not hi? own party dsturbed from 
center to circumference because of this decision about the terri- 
tories? Is it reasonable to suppose that the South views this 
disturbing, antagonizing and threatening party with little or no 
concern as to the result? 

We therefore again ask what moved him to say to the North, 
"In all their present complaints against us the territories are 
scarcely mentioned ?" May it not be to gain an advantage over 
the Northern mind by thus declaring that this Supreme Court's 
decision, as to the territories, is insignificant, even in the estima- 
tion of the South ? 

His next words are these : "The question recurs what will 
satisfy them? Simply this: we must not only let them alone 
but we must convince them somehow that we do let them 
alone." 

Here is a most guilty confession, — a confession that IJncoln 
and his party have not "let them alone ;" that the Republican par- 
ty have been violently disturbers of the peace between the North 
and the South. "We must sonuehow convince them that we do 
let them alone." Take these words in connection with the pur- 
pose of the gathering of the Republican clansmen on this momen- 
tous occasion, and the difficulty of convincing them is greatly in- 
creased. Take the occasion in connection with the violent 
speech of the orator, and the difficulty is still more increased. That 
purpose is confessed to be a repudiation of a decision of the Su- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 133 

preme Court of the Nation. Have we not here a standing con- 
fession to the world that the great American conflict of the Six- 
ties originated in the North? 

The South prefers to answer Lincoln's question herself as to 
what will satisfy her. It is simply this : "The North must 
recognize the Supreme Court decisions and laws Constitutionally 
enacted, and prove by deed as well as by word that she will 
faithfully obey them. This will satisfy the South. All well 
informed men know she never did demand more. Common 
justice testifies she never should have consented to less. 

The very next words are not less hostile to the authoritative 
voice of the Third Great Fundamental Department of this Gov- 
ernment : "I am aware they have not as yet in terms demanded 
the overthrow of our free State Constitutions. Yet these Con- 
stitutions declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn em- 
phasis than all other sayings against it, and when all the other 
sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of the free State 
Constitutions will be demanded, and nothing will be left to resist 
the demand." 

In the words : "T am aware they have not as yet in terms 
dem.anded the overthrow of our free State Constitutions" we 
have both an implied confession, and an implied charge against the 
South and the Supreme Court. The implied confession is that 
the South and the Supreme Court "have not as yet demanded in 
terms" that the North give up her State Constitutions. His im- 
plied charge is that they will eventually do so. These assertions 
are without even a shadow of truth. There can be but one other 
construction put upon these words, and that construction is a 
kmdred one, viz : While they have not as yet actually "demanded 
in terms the overthrow of our free State Constitutions," they 
have already substantially done so. Was absurdity ever more 
absurd ? 

And what shall be said of these words? "Yet these Consti- 
tutions declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis 
than all other sayings against it." Do they not declare the wrong 
of slavery is the paramount issue before which the Supreme Court 
decisions must succumb? If slavery is wrong is not the crime 



134 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

with equal justice chargeable to both sections? Upon what 
just basis does he exempt the North from the wrong and settle 
it upon the South? Is it not universally known and admitted 
that it was not a conviction that slavery was wrong, but "the 
law of climate" that gave the free States their Constitutions abol- 
ishing slavery? Chief Justice Taney was not an advocate of 
slavery, yet in rendering the decision for seven Supreme Court 
Judges in the Dred Scott case he said: "In that portion of the 
United States where the labor of the negro race was found to 
be unsuited to the climate and unprofitable to the master, but 
few slaves were held at the time of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence ; and, when the Constitution was adopted, it had entirely 
worn out in one of them, and measures had been taken for its 
gradual abolition in several others. But this change had not 
been produced by any change of opinion in relation to this race, 
but because — it was discovered from experience that slave labor 
was unsuited to the climate and productions of these States : for 
some of these States, in which it had ceased, or nearly ceased, to 
exist, were actively engaged in the slave-trade; procuring car- 
goes on the coast of Africa, and transporting them for sale to 
these parts of the Union where their labor was found to be profit- 
able and suited to the climate and productions. And this traf- 
fic was openly carried on, and fortunes accumulated by it, with- 
out reproach from the people of the States where they re- 
sided." 

Who is the more trustworthy witness here, the unbiased judge 
with no political string to pull, or the politician courting popular 
favor? The one is a partisan, speaking as a partisan to an audi- 
ence of partisans. The other is a judge, sworn to be impar- 
tial, pronouncing a judicial opinion to all American citizens with- 
out regard to parties, stating well established facts in connec- 
tion with that decision. Which of the two is the more worthy 
witness ? 

Let us next consider Lincoln's doleful climax, the fruit of a 
strained imagination: "And when all the other sayings (what- 
ever this means) shall have been silenced the overthrow of the 
Constitution will be demanded, and nothing will be left to re- 
sist the demands." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 135 

Think of it! Himself in the very midst of an effort to over- 
throw the Constitution of the Union of the States, by conspiring 
to defeat a decision of the Supreme Court, he charges that, in 
the most remote possibiHty, the South and the Supreme Court 
will be guilty of the great crime of overthrowing the Constitu- 
tion. Note the difference. What Mr. Lincoln is now doing 
is a fact. What he charges the South and the Supreme Court 
will do is not a possible fact, except "when all the other sayings 
shall have been silenced" — a most remote period, when human 
beings will not inhabit this earth. Which is the greater crime, 
that which is now being corrimitted by Lincoln and his party, 
or that to be committed by the South and the Supreme Court 
under circumstances impossible to exist? 

With what urgency does he press his claim? If resistance is 
not now made to this decision, by the North "nothing will be 
left to resist the demand" of the Supreme Court and the South. 
Why this wild exaggeration? Upon what fact is it based? If 
upon any fact at all it is upon that most distant fact which has 
not yet occurred, and which will not occur till "all other sayings 
shall have been silenced." 

"There is nothing so kingly as kindness ; 
Nothing so royal as truth." 



CHAPTER XL I 

THE COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH 
CONTINUED. 

We have shown in the two chapters, immediately preceding 
this, that this speech is very remarkable for a number of reasons, 
among them the following : 

1. For what it undertakes to accomplish, viz. : "To put the 
new party, the Republican, on Constitutional ground ;" — in other 
words to overthrow the Supreme Court's decision which has 
declared it to be on unconstitutional grounds. — 

2. For basing his argument in the accomplishment of this 
undertaking on the very untenable ground that he had secured 
absolute knowledge that a majority of the 39 signers of the Con- 
stitution did not "disclose their real sentiments" either by their 
votes or in signing the Constitution ; — knowledge, when the rec- 
ords are silent, as in this case, possessed only by Him who 
hears the secret and silent whisperings of the human consci- 
ence. — 

3. For the absurd claim that even if such knowledge is ac- 
tually attainable by man under such conditions, it would be 
sufficient to qualify and justify him, a mere private citizen, to 
legally demolish a decision of the Supreme Court. 

4. For the fact that having only such knowledge he lays claim 
"to evidence so conclusive and argument so clear that even the 
fathers' great authority, when fairly considered and weighed can 

not stand." 

5. For not recognizing the very important fact that when 
the records are silent the unbiased judgment of mankind has 
unanimously been lenient enough to decide that representatives 
generally "disclose their real sentiments" by their votes and 

acts. 

6. For the exaggerations throughout his entire discourse, — 
on a par with 7 to 2 is "a bare majority." 

7. For his words of counsel to the South: "You will not 
break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Con- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 137 

stitutional rights?" "Do you really feel yourselves justified to 
break up the Government unless such a Court's decision as yours 
is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule 
of political action?" We further admonish you that "It is ex- 
ceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall 
be at peace, and in harmony one with another ;" — admonitions 
clearly meaning you shall submit to a denial of your Constitu- 
tional rights. 

8. For his repeated assertions that this right or that right 
is not written in the Constitutions, and can therefore be exercised 
by the United States Government only, ignoring the unmistaka- 
ble meaning of these plain words in the Compact : "Each State 
retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every 
power, jurisdiction and right which is not in the Confederation 
expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assem- 
bled." 

9. For its derision of the Supreme Court's decision, calling 
its decision "a sort of decision," "an obvious mistake," and, 
"such a decision as yours is." The same character of derision 
pervades more or less, the entire address. Yet its very title, 
"The Supreme Court," fixes its rank and authority. As Con- 
gress is supreme in regulating commerce, and in making war 
and peace, so the Supreme Court is the supreme judicial authority 
in the Government. In the words of the Constitution its juris- 
diction is extended to all cases in law and equity arising under 
this Constitution, the laws of the United States and treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under their authority; — to all 
cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls ; — 
to all cases of admirality and maritime jurisdiction; — and to 
controversies to which the United States shall be a party; — to 
controversies between two or more States ; between a State and 
citizens of another State; — between citizens of different States; 
between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants 
of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, 
and the foreign States, citizens or subjects." (Art 3, Sec 
2). ' • ' 



138 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

This is that highest, greatest, most excellent court in all the 
land against which Lincoln, in this speech, is waging a deadly- 
war. Such is its high authority and influence in the Nation 
that when it declares an act of our National Legislature uncon- 
stitutional, that act is nul and void. 

It was to this preeminently exalted authority to which Lincoln 
referred when he said, "But we, on the other hand, deny that 
any such right has existence in the Constitution." 

As this speech holds a very conspicuous place among the 
causes culminating in the war of the Sixties we shall give it 
further consideration. As we have seen Lincoln has just de- 
nounced a decision of the Supreme Court on the ground that it 
is "an obvious mistake" etc. Along the same line of exaggera- 
tion he next tells the North what the South demands: — 

"1. The Northern people must first cease to call slavery 
wrong, and join them (The Southern people) in calling it 
right. 

"2. All must be done, thoroughly done, in acts as well as 
words. 

"3. Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforc- 
ed, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether 
made in politics, in pulpits, or in private. 

"4. The North must arrest and return their fugitive slaves 
with greedy pleasure. 

"5. The North must pull down their free Constitutions. 

"6. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all op- 
position to slavery." 

These known exaggerations are not the utterances of sober 
thought, but they are the words of passion excited by a supposed 
injury to the new party. To understand the true situation it 
must not be forgotten that the Supreme Court, three years ago, 
had handed down a decision, establishing the correctness of the 
South's position as to slavery and the territories. These ful- 
miinations of ill-humor against the South result from this decision. 
In sustaining the South it rebuked the platform of the Republi- 
can party. Instead of submitting to this established principle 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 139 

of Constitutional law, this party plotted and planned for three 
years how to evade it. The result was united resistance to the 
decision all along the line in the name of "the wrong of slavery." 
These six exaggerations as to the demands of the South all betray 
the secret. Read them again and examine them carefully. You 
will find that all of them have to do directly with the wrongs of 
slavery. 

If, when you have done this, there remains the shadow of a 
doubt, that shadow will pass after reading these other words; 
"Their (the South's) thinking it right and our thinking it wrong 
is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy." 
The evidence is now mathematically conclusive that "the wrong 
of slavery" was a mere screen used to hide the main issue. 

If slavery was wrong were the skirts of the North clear 
If slavery was wrong does not the voice of history proclaim 
the North as guilty of that wrong as the South? If so, was 
this wrong a just basis of attack on the Supreme Court and the 
South? Does not history also testify that the North did not 
give up slavery because it was wrong? If this decision was dis- 
pleasing to the new party was there no legal method for revers- 
ing it? There was; and it was far more manly, far more noble, 
and far more patriotic. We refer to the method prescribed in 
the Constitution. It is true it would not have been so speedy 
as revolution, but it would have been an honorable compliance 
with the compact of the States and far less bloody. 

The Constitution as framed had settled the status of slavery. 
Right or wrong it took slavery under its broad shield. Justice 
and right demand that this fact should not be lost to sight in 
the discussion of this question. But that it was lost to sight is 
shown in the temper of this speech, in its extravagance of lan- 
guage, and in its hostility to the Supreme Court and the 
South. 

We now pass to another feature of this strange address. We 
have seen Mr. Lincoln putting to shame — 'in his own estimation — 
the Supreme Court by hs superior knowledge . We are next 
to witness his superb preeminence in another field of intellectual 
exploit. It is his claim that he has produced "evidence so com- 



140 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

elusive and argument so clear that even their (the fathers') 
great authority when fairly considered and weighed can not 
stand." 

Does not this speech furnish its own challenge to this extreme 
claim? The six exaggerations as to the claims of the South 
make their challenge quick and sharp. Do not the nine reasons 
given in the first part of this chapter, showing why this speech 
is very remarkable, throw their challenge boldly and defiantly, 
each for itself, into the ring? Has 7 to 2 is "a bare majority" 
no challenge to offer? 

The best of men occasionally overleap the boundaries of pro- 
priety, and indulge in wild extravagances and self-laudations. 
These occasions generally come when fortune greets us with a 
broad smile and great promises. Lincoln's party had just con- 
ferred on him a very signal honor, that of making the party 
speech, the speech designed "to put the new" and unconstitutional 
"party on constitutional ground." This distinguished honor 
also carried with it the leadership of the party. This in turn 
put the presidential bee to buzzing about his head. Is it there- 
fore to be wondered at that the Supreme Court was not his equal, 
and that "the great authority of the fathers' when fairly con- 
sidered and weighed" could not stand "before his conclusive evi- 
dence and clear reasoning? Let it be remembered that Lincoln 
was huinan, and very human at that — even very ambitious. 

Francis Newton Thorpe in his "The Civil War from a Northern 
Standpoint," p. Ill, unable to defend this speech from a consti- 
tuiional point of view, takes a position outside the Constitution. 
He says, "A new state of mind was forming in the Nation in- 
compatible with the state of mind which had made slavery the 
dominant power of the nation." Does not Mr. Thorpe mean 
that this "new state of mind" is Lincoln's only defence? And 
does he not declare it "incompatible with the state of mind" ex- 
isting when the Constitution was framed ? If so, does he not 
also declare it was still incompatible with the Constitution ? Had 
not the Supreme Court also so declared He therefore refers 
to a time in our history when all loyal citizens tipped their hats 
alike to the Judiciary, the Executive, and the Legislative depart- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 141 

ments of our Government. To the South's immortal honor 
that time had never ceased to be within her borders. The Con- 
stitution, the whole Constitution, unimpaired, and without any 
outside appendages, was her only hope of a perpetual Union. 
The "new state of mind" had its origin exclusively in the North, 
and was confined exclusively to that section. It was, therefore, 
sectional to the core. These are stern facts of history; and in 
the ages to come history will not deny itself. All coming time 
will fix the responsibility for that war where it belongs^ — on the 
North. 

This outside-of-the-Constitution-new-state-of-mind theory as- 
sumed that the Constitution did not provide for a change of mind 
in the Government. But it was a false assumption. The fath- 
ers were not unmindful of the fact that future conditions might 
render a change in the compact necessary. Hence they made 
ample provision for any such change. They provided for peace- 
able changes, legal and orderly changes, not changes by con- 
straint or violence ; — changes approved by three- fourths of the 
States forming the Union. All other changes were outside the 
Constitution, and, therefore, were revolutionary. 

Mr. Thorpe, writing from "A Northern Standpoint," natural- 
ly feels under obligations to defend Ltincoln in some way. He, 
therefore, informs us that "Lincoln would prove that the princi- 
ples of the fathers were the principles of the new party, and 
that they who supported it were simply returning to first prin- 
ciples." Note that Mr. Thorpe does not say did prove, for he 
could not, but "would prove," etc. All w*ho have read this 
speech must agree with him. 

Just as there is a vast dieffrence between did prove and would 
prove, so there is a vast difference between the principles of 
the fathers and these of the new party. The fathers invariably 
obeyed a decision of the Supreme Court in a loyal and patriotic 
manner. The new party not only repudiated a decision of this 
Court but also denounced it as ambiguous, "a sortof decision," — 
"based upon a mistaken fact," etc. The fathers, when not satis- 
fied with a decision of this Court, reversed it in a Constitutional 
manner, by an amendment approved by three-fourths of the 



142 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

States. The new party would reverse a decision of this Court 
by first getting control of the Government and then ignoring it. 
Would that the principles of the new party had been the prin- 
ciples of the fathers ! Then the great war would not have been. 
Then contending patriots from the two great sections would not 
have enriched American soil from Gettysburgh to Ocean Pond 
with their best blood. Then the sad lamentations of mothers 
and fathers, of sisters and brothers, of friends and foes would 
not have been heard in our land from ocean to ocean, and from 
the Great Lakes on our extreme Northern border to our South- 
ern-most Gulf, whose mild breezes proclaimed a warmth and 
cheer in strong contrast to our battlement hills and the valleys 
where brothers stood in battle array against brothers. 

With perhaps only one other quotation from this remarkable 
speech, so rich in absurdities, so abundant in self-laudations, and 
exaggerations, and so devoid of sustaining facts, we shall pass 
to the consideration of other topics. That quotation is this : 
"Wrong as we may think slavery is we can yet affard to let 
it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity 
arising from its actual presence in the Nation, but can we, while 
our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National 
Territories and overrun us in these free States? 

What is this but rebellion against the authority of the Su- 
preme Court, and against the just rights of the South as declared 
by that tribunal? Consider how very unjust these words are. 
Had not the South led in the prohibiting of slaves from foreign 
parts, and thus in limiting the slave population to what it then 
was? Had not the Congress of the United States come to the 
aid of the South by enacting her prohibition clause into law? 
This being true was not the increas of the slave population lim- 
ited to the capacity of the slaves then in the States ! Could any 
one, except Lincoln, imagine that by their spreading into the 
Common territories the increase of the slave population would 
be greater by as much as one slave? What then are we to 
think of that false imagination that by spreading into the Com- 
mon territories the increase thereby will be so enormously greater 
that it will "overrun us in these free States?" Does not this 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OE THE SOUTH 143 

false exaggeration find kindred expressions all through this 
speech? Is this the true characteristic of a great statesman? 
Can a statesman be truly great without being just and true? 

On the contrary did not the spreading of the slave population 
into the territories tend to limiting the number of slaves Did 
not all, except Lincoln, know that if these territories, on enter- 
ing the Union as States, should adopt anti-slave Constitutions 
it would free all the Slaves within their borders, just as it did 
in the case of Massachusetts? Would not this diminish the 
number of slavese? We have here another conspicuous illus- 
tration of that character of "evidence so conclusive and argument 
so clear that even the Fathers' great authority, when fairly con- 
sidered and weighed cnanot stand." 

"We can yet let it alone where it is" had its own peculiar and 
emphatic meaning for the South, and carried its own admonition 
to that section, so favored by the Constitution and so loyal to 
that instrument. What other construction could be put on it 
than this : We will now prohibit slavery from entering the ter- 
ritories, and when the yet-time shall have come, we will then 
exclude it from the States as well? Had not Seward already 
said "we will invade your States?" With more than a million 
of men known to have endorsed these rabid sentiments had the 
South no cause for alarm? Will the brave veterans of the 
North declare to the contrary? Will they declare these words 
of Lincoln do not also bear testimony that Lincoln was assailing 
the Supreme Court's decision under the guise of "the wrong of 
slavery ?" 

We have now discussed this speech sufficiently to determine 
its true character. If the reader is astonished at its exagger- 
ations, extravagancies, absurdities, and its abuse of the Supreme 
Court, so is the writer. It is a sad thought that one's exalted 
opinion of a fellowman should be thus discounted. No friend 
of Lincoln defends this speech from the standpoint of the Con- 
stitution. It is not less a surprise for its want of fact than 
for its exalted self-laudations ; — not less a surprise for its absurd 
basis of proof that a majority of the 39 signers of the Constitu- 
tion did "disclose their real sentinients" in the Convention and 



144 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

in signing the Constitution, than for its very extraordinary claim 
as to the conclusiveness of the evidence and the clearness of the 
argument ; — not less a surprise at the character of this speech 
than at its wonderful influence on the audience, and on a very 
large percent of the Northern people. To them "the words of 
his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart" — 
for the South and for the Supreme Court. 

That a political party could rightfully overrule a decision of 
the Supreme Court was a most dangerous theory. It is fortu- 
nate that it did not survive the war it inaugurated. Had it be- 
come an established principle of this Government it would have 
virtually abolished the Supreme Court, one of the three funda- 
mental departments of the Government. 

Ten years earlier than this speech there was another delivered 
in strong contrast to this. This time it was delivered in the 
hall of the United States Senate. The speaker was a Southern 
man, and no less than the great South Carolinian, John C. Cal- 
houn, one of the "immortal trio." Earnestly desirous of avert- 
ing the danger of disunion, so imminent because of the policy 
of a few Northern agitators, he asked and answered this ques- 
tion : "Hozv Can the Union Be Saved?" 

His answer was : "There is but one way by Avhich it can be 
with any certainty ; and that is by a full and final settlement, on 
the principles of justice of all the questions at issue between 
the sections. The South asks for justice, — simple justice, and 
less she ought not to take. She has no compromise to offer 
but the Constitution, and no concessions or surrenders to 
make. 

"Can this be done? Yes, easily! Not by the weaker party; 
for it can of itself do nothing — not even protect itself — but by the 

stronger But will the North agree to this? It is for her 

to answer the question. But I will say she can not refuse if she 
has half the love of the Union which she professes to have, nor 
without exposing herself to the charge that her love of power 
and aggrandizement is far greater than her love for the Union." 

Was Calhoun a rebel when he said, "The South asks for jus- 
tice — simple justice?" If not, was he in rebellion when he fin- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 145 

ished the sentence with these words : "Less she ought not to 
take." If not yet in rebelHon was he when he said, "She has 
no compromise to offer but the Constitution," the common pledge 
of all the States, — the one instrument by which all the States had 
sworn to be governed? Did Calhoun mean the Constitution as 
construed by himself? He meant the Constitution with its full 
meaning, including the Supreme Court, by which it was to be 
construed. 

If the demands of the South did not constitute her in rebel- 
lion in 1850, how could the same demands declare her in rebel- 
lion in 1860? What political party, what State, what Section 
had any right to reject the Constitution as a basis of compromise? 
Was there a party, a State or Section that did not profess to 
love and revere the Constitution? Yet the South, in 1860, for 
demanding her rights — her simple rights — under the Constitution, 
to be determined according to the provisions of that instrument, 
was declared to be disunionists, traitors and rebels ; and was so 
published to the world, while the party that denounced the Su- 
preme Court's decision, and, therefore, the Supreme Court it- 
self, was declared to be the only loyal and patriotic defenders 
of the Constitution thev had openly and boldly defied. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WHAT THE SOUTH DEMANDED IN THE 

SIXTIES. 

All her demands were in one word — the Constitution with its 
guaranties, — this, no more and no less. All her declarations, 
public or private, and all her acts, legislative or otherwise, at- 
test the truth of this declaration. All history is challenged for 
a contradiction of this statement. If in demanding the Consti- 
tution the South erred, she erred with the Supreme Court and all 
the States of the Union up to ISfil. If. therefore, she was a rebel 
so was the Supreme Court ; so were all the other States, North 
as well as South. We have said, and said truly, — to assail a part 
of the Constitution is to attack it all. 

What construction of the Constitution by the South and by the 
Supreme Court resulted in so much trouble in the Sixties? 
Simply this : That the States were equal under the Constitution, 
and therefore had equal rights in the territories which belonged 
to all alike. It was this Construction of the Constitution that 
inaugurated the war. This is one of the established facts of 
history. It lifts the blame for that great war from the should- 
ers of the South. 

As the utterances of the leaders on both sides have much to 
do in determiining this question we have given, in previous chap- 
ters. Lincoln's views as contained in his celebrated Cooper In- 
stitute Speech ; and shall now procede to present the South's 
views from one or more of her truly representative statesmen. 

That we may be absolutely just we select a speech delivered 
in the United States Senate, by one recognized throughout the 
entire North as one of the most extreme, if not the extremest. 
of all the South's representatives. If the demands of this 
Southern extremist were moderate and limited to the Constitu- 
tion, may we not in fairness, at the least, conclude that the pre- 
vailing sentiment of the South was characterized by the same 
virtue of moderation ? We refer to the speech of the celebrated 
Robert Toombs of Georgia, delivered in the United States 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 147 

Senate on the <th of January 18(Jl, more than two weeks after 
South Carolina had passed her ordinance of secession, and more 
than eleven months after Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech. 
Two days before this speech was delivered it had been falsely 
charged that "the slavery oligarchy" had formed a conspiracy to 
withdraw from the Federal Union. It was the hour, therefore, 
of excitement, passion an antagonism. Yet if in all this speech 
Mr. Toombs uttered a disloyal sentiment the writer has been 
unable to find it. If it be charged that the writer is a Confed- 
erate veteran and therefore biased, he is bold to say all the re- 
search by historians, North and South, has been unable to disclose 
it. If the researches of a half century, made by friends and foes, 
can not reveal a disloyal sentiment there must be none. 

Mr. Toombs said : "Senators, my countrymen have demanded 
no new government ; they have demanded no new Constitution. 
Look to their record at home and here from the beginning of 
this strife until its consummation in the disruption of the Union ; 
and they have not demanded a single thing except that you shall 
abide by the Constitution of the United States, that their con- 
stitutional rights sliall be respected, ancP that jusice shall be 
done." 

"My countrymen have demanded no new government, no new 
constitution," are not the words of a traitor. "They have not 
demanded a single thing except that }OU shall abide by the Con- 
stitution of the United States," are not the words of a rebel. 
"They demand that their constitutional rights shall be respected 
and that justice shall be done" are antipodal to treason. The 
South did but ask that the North be true to her plighted faith as 
given in the Constitution of the States, and for simple justice. 
Could she have asked for loss? These every individual, how- 
ever humble, and every State and every Government have a right 
to demand, and in demanding them they have a right to be ex- 
empt from rebuke or reproach. 

"Look to their record at home and here from the beginning 
of this strife until its consummation in the disruption of the 
Union" is both a challenge and an implied charge : — a challenge 
as to the integrity of the conduct of the South, and an implied 



14S RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

charge that the North was responsible for the disruption of the 
Union. The sting of this speech was in this imphed charge. Yet 
more than a half century confidently repeats it, and all future 
ages will confirm it. 

"Sirs they have stood by your Constitution ; they have stood 
by all its requirements; they have performed all its duties un- 
selfishly, incalculatingly, disinterestedly, until a party sprang up 
in this country which endangered their social system — a party 
which they arraign, and which they charge before the American 
people and all mankind with having made proclamation of out- 
lawry against thousands of millions of their property in the 
territories of the United States ; and with having aided and abet- 
ted insurrections from within and invasions from without, with 
a view of subverting their institutions and destroying their homes 
and firesides." 

Here we have another strong affirmation as to the South's 
unbroken allegiance to the Constitution, and hence to the Union ; 
and as to her constant obedience to all its requirements. We al- 
so have here charges of a most terrible nature — charges of aiding 
and abetting insurrections in the South, and subverting her in- 
stitutions and destroying her homes and her firesides. To en- 
danger the social system of a country, to outlaw its Constitutional 
rights, to subvert its institutions, and to desolate its homes and 
firesides are not ordinary charges. Yet who can deny that these 
charges were true? Are all these to be overlooked when we 
consider the wrongs of the South? Had the white population 
of the South no rights to be respected? Were all their rights 
monopolized by those of the negro? 

The passions engendered in the Sixties by the misrepresenta- 
tions of the South, and by the stirring events that followed, have 
not yet entirely died out. Rut perhaps today at least nine- 
tenths of the reading public confess that Toombs spoke the truth 
when he affirmed the South's unstinted devotion to the Constitu- 
tion and the Union. When all the participants in the great con- 
flict that resulted from the plain and obvious violations of the 
Constitution by the new party shall have been laid to rest in 
"the silent city," then reason will supplant passion ; then right 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 149 

and justice will take the place of wrong and injustice; then 
knowledge will silence the voice of ignorance; and then the 
South will be forever vindicated. Yes, her wrongs will still be 
hers. So, too, will be the umparalleled sacrifices and matchless 
deeds of her citizen soldiers. These she will leave as a precious 
heritage to her children and children's children. Those she will 
strive to forget as the wrongs of ambition and sefl-aggrandize- 
ment. _ 

"The discontented States of this Union have demanded noth- 
ing but clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged Constitu- 
tional rights, — rights affirmed by the highest tribunal of their 
country ; rights older than the Constitution ; rights which are 
planted upon the immutable principles of justice ; rights which 
have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all generations 
and all countries." 

"The discontented States of this Union have demanded nothing 
but clear, distinct unequivocal, well-acknowledged Constitutional 
rights," states a most creditable fact of history, the truth of 
which no one can deny. These are not the words of a traitor. 
The South turned to the Constitution as the needly to the Pole. 
There is no attempt at deception in this speech. Truth needs 
no deception. There is no appeal to passion in this speech. Truth 
is independent of passion. It is an appeal that well becomes the 
dignity of truth, — manly, honorable, patriotic ; and appeal to 
"well-acknowledged constitutional rights." What better basis 
could have been possible for a settlement of issues between the 
two sections than this? Yea, what other basis than the Consti- 
tution was laid by the fathers for a settlement of questions be- 
tween the States ! Yet, did not the party in power reject the 
Constitution as a basis of settlement, and then denounce the 
South as "traitors" and "rebels?" 

The five demands of this Southern extremist are all within the 
limits of the Constitution. They are made in the name of his 
native State and of his maligned section of the Union. When 
this sh?ll have Been read and known of all men, the world will 
be amazed, that the excuses for waging the Grat war against 



150 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the South were all arbitray and unconstitutional. The five de- 
mands are as follows : 

"First, that the people of the United States shall have an 
equal right to emigrate and settle in the present or any future 
territories with whatever property they may possess, and be se- 
curely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such territory 
may be admitted as a State into the Union with or without slav- 
ery, as she may determine, on an equality with all the other 
States. 

"Second, that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same 
protection from the Government of the United States, in all 
its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers the 
power upon it to extend to any other property, provided nothing 
herein contained shall be construed to limit or restrain the right 
now belonging to every State to prohibit, abolish, or establish and 
])rolect slavery within its limits. We demand of the Govern- 
mnet to protect our property as well as yours. Ought it not 
to be so? You say no. Every one of you upon the Committee 
said no. Your Senators say no. Your House of Representa- 
tives say no. Throughout the length and breadth of your con- 
spiracy against the Constitution you say no. The recognition 
of this right is the price of my allegiance. Withhold it and 
you do not get my obedience. 

"Third, We demand in the next place that persons committing 
crimes against slave property in one State and fleeing into an- 
other shall be delivered un in the same manner as persons com- 
mitting crimes against other property, and that the laws of the 
State from which such persons flee shall be the test of criminal- 
ity. The Constitution of the United States Art. 4, Sec. 2, 
says, "A person charged in any State with treason, felony or 
other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in any 
other State, shall on demand of the executive authority of the 
State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the 
State having jurisdiction of the crime. But some of the non- 
holding vSlave States, treancherous to their oaths and compacts, 
have steadiK- refused, if the criminal only stole a negro, and 
that negro was a slave, to deliver him up." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 151 

"Fourth — The next stipulation is that fugitive slaves shall be 
surrendered. Here is the Constitution: "No person held to 
serve or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping 
into another, shall in consequence of anv law or regulation there- 
in be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be de- 
livered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor 
may be due. (Sec. 2, Art. 4, Constitution). 

"This language is plain and everybody understood it the same 
way for the first forty years of our Government. In 1793, in 
Washington's time, an act was passed to carry out this provision. 
It was adopted unanimously by the Senate of the United States, 
and nearly so in the House of Representatives. Nobody then 
had invented pretexts to show that the Constitution did not mean 
a negro slave. It was clear ; it was plain. Not only the Fed- 
eral Courts but all the local courts in all the States decided that 
this was a Constitutional obligation. How is it now ? I have 
heretofore said that the plain Constitutional provision has been 
violated by specific acts in the thirteen States. 

"Fifth, that Congress shall pass efficient laws for the punish- 
ment of all persons, in any other States, who shall, in any man- 
ner, aid and abet an invasion or insurrection in any other State, 
or commit any other act against the laws of the nations, tending 
to disturb the tranquility of the people or Government of any 
other State. 

"That is a very plain principle. The Constitution of the Unit- 
ed States now requires, and gives Congress express power to de- 
fine, and punish conspiracies and felonies committed on the 
high seas, and offences against the laws of nations. When the 
honorable and distinguished Senator from Illinois, (Mr. Doug- 
las) last year introduced a bill for the purpose of punishing 
people thus offending against the laws of nations under that 
clause of the Constitution, Mr. Lincoln in his speech 
at New York, which I have before me, declared that it 
was "a sedition bill ; his press and party hooted at it. 
So far from recognizing the bill as intended to carry 
out the Constitution of the United States, it received their jeers 
and gibes. The Republicnas of Massachusetts elected the ad- 



152 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

mirer and eulogist of John Brown's courage, as their Governor, 
and we may suppose he will throw no impediment in the way 
of John Brown's successors." 

These are the five demands of a "Southern extremist" and 
"rebel." It is worthy of note that all of them relate to the 
institution of slavery. Who can note this fact and not locate 
the source of all the troubles that agitated the country in the 
Sixties? 

We have said that all of them are within the limits of the Con- 
stitution. If this be true all were just demands from a Constitu- 
tional standpoint. Can a section of this Republic, making Con- 
stitutional demands for its domestic tranquility and .safety be a 
traitor to that instrument? Can there be a stronger evidence 
of loyaltv to that instrument, and hence to the Union? 

That the first demand is constitutional is seen in the fact that 
it simply requires that the people of all the States shall have 
equal right to emigrate to the common territories with their 
property of whatever kind, and he equally protected in the en- 
joyment of their property ; and that thits very reasonable and 
just demand was sustained by a decision of the Supreme Court, 
made in 1857. Therefore the first demand is constitutional. 

Who can deny that the second demand is constitutional, as 
it simply requires that the same protection of the Government 
be given to the States of the South as that given to the States 
of the North? Were not all the States equal under the Consti- 
tution? Were they not all. therefore, entitled to equal rights 
under that instrument? 

The third and fourth demands were Constitutional because 
they simply required that Art. 4, Sec. 2, of the Constitution be 
enforced. In commenting on this article of the Constitution 
Mr. Toombs saiid : "It was refused twice on the requisition of 
tiiy own State.... It was refused by Kent and Fairfield, Gov- 
ernors of Maine. ... It was refused by Mr. Seward when Gov- 
ernor of New York. He said "it was not against the laws of 
New York to steal a negro." No. but it was against the Con- 
stitution, and therefore against his oath as Governor of New 
York. .. .There is the bargain: there is the compact. Both 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 153 

Governors swore to it. The Senator (Mr. Seward) from New- 
York swore to it, when he was inaugurated. The Governor 
of Ohio swore to it when he was inaugurated. You cannot 
bind them by oaths. Yet they talk to us of treason. It is 
natural that we should want this provision, of the Constitution 
carried out. By the text and by the letter of the Constitution 
you agreed to give them up. You have broken yovir oaths." 

Mr. Toombs uses strong language here because of the wrongs 
that threaten his section of the Union. We appeal to the hon- 
est sentiment of the North to know if Art. 4, Sec. 2, of the 
Constitution does not justify this demand? If so, "the precise 
question" was not "the wrong or right of slavery." But it was 
whether the Constitution should be obeyed or disobeyed. That 
was "the precise question." Did not Lincoln know this? Why 
then should he have raised a false issue? Obedience or disobe- 
dience to the Constitution was the very heart of the question 
agitating the North and the South in 1860-65. It was the cen- 
ter around which all the disturbances revolved. There is no 
evasion of this conclusion. 

It follows, therefore, that there can be no better way of es- 
tablishing the blame for that war, and its attendaent evils of such 
stupendous proportions than by ascertaining who commenced 
this agitation, and who refused to comply with the Constitutional 
requirements. 

The South had no motive to agitate a question in which she 
was so clearly protected by the Constitution, and the agitation of 
which was so exceedingly detrimental to her property, her fire- 
sides, and her lives. It would have been both unnatural and 
imreasonable to suppose that the South would have invited such 
terrible disasters. It follows, therefore, that the South did not 
begin it. and consequently that the North did. Moreover, there 
was not a time after the first two decades of the 19th Century 
when the South was not on the defensive as to the institution 
of slavery. This fact alone implies an attack on this institution, 
and as the South did not act so unnaturally as to attack her- 
self, it was made by the North. It therefore follows that the 



154 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

agitation of this question was begun in the North, and that the 
North is responsible for the consequences. 

As to the question, "who refused to comply with the Con- 
stitutional requirements," there is no divided opinion. It is uni- 
versally conceded that quite a number of the Northern States ab- 
solutely refused to comply with Section 2. Article 4, of the Con- 
stitution, which is in these words: "No person held to service 
or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another 
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim 
of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." It 
therefore follows that not only did the agitation of the slave 
question begin in the North, but also it was the Northern States 
that refused to comply with the terms of the Constitution. Who 
then were to blame for the great war ? 

We know that fictitious literature had created a fictitious sen- 
timent in the North ; and this sentiment had created for the es- 
caped slave a sympatthy so strong that it would not endure the 
Constitution. But we are not discussing the power of sympathy, 
be it from real or fictitious causes. We are discussing princi- 
ples, involving no less a question than the violation of a sacred 
compact between oath-bound States — principles upon a broad 
scale that involve vast communities as communities, or States, 
and not as between one man and another man. The uathori- 
ties, therefore, at the head of these sworn States should have 
risen above individual or local sympathy, and should have been 
true to the obligations of their oath-bound States. But they 
were not thus true, and, therefore, lost the confidence of the 
South ; and, by persisting in this unconstitutional course, in- 
augurated the great war. Then characteristic of all guilty par- 
ties, charged the blame to the South. It is bad enough for 
States to violate their sacred oath. But what shall be said of 
States that not only violated their oaths but charged all the crimes 
and sufferings and destructions resulting from their sin to States 
that had been true to their sworn obligations? 

What are we to think when it is known that no less than thir- 
teen States passed laws annulling Section '?. Article T of the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 155 

Constitution? These were violations by the State leigsla- 
tures — the law-makers, or deliberative assemblies. They were 
violations of the most deliberate kind. They were well weighed 
in the mind. They were put in the form of a bill. They were 
discussed. They were enacted into law. These thirteen 
States not only violated their oaths as to the Constitution, but 
recorded these violations in the most enduring form, — in the 
statutes of their States. These statutes make their own confes- 
sions of the violations of the Constitution, — confessions that can 
not be obliterated without destroying- State records of the most 
important character, — legislative records. These are the States 
that accused the South of treason : of treason when they had, 
in advance, deliberately furnished the strongest possible testi- 
mony of their own dislovaltv ! 

How much more honorable and patriotic it would have been 
if these States had stepped to the front, and, standing upon 
the pure white platform of truth and candor, had said to their 
brother States of the South: ''We know the Constitution 
grants you this right, but our sympathies are such that we can 
not comply with it. Let us meet on friendly ground and see 
if we can not so change this clause of the Constitution that we 
can, instead, pay you for your escaped slaves." 

Is there one who knows the Southern characteristics that 
tlinVs the South would have rejected this proposition.^ If 
nftor such a friendly intercourse the South should have decided 
to reject it she would have done it with a friendlv grasp of the 
hand, and the North would have known the reason. As the 
Xorth was the aggressor such a proposition should have come 
from her, and not from the South. 

Who knows but such a course on the part of these 13 States 
might have been the entering wedge for opening up friendly re- 
lations before unknown? Who knows but that it might have 
resulted in a policy of gradual emancipation of all the slaves 
in all the Slave States? The South, by half, was not wedded 
to slavery to the extent a misinfonned and misguided North 
had supposed. Have we not shown, in Chapter 2, Section 12, 
of this volumn that IS years before the framing of the Const!- 



156 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSP: OF THE SOUTH 

tution Virginia prohibited the further importation of slaves into 
her domain? Have we not shown in the same chapter and sec- 
tion that in the earher days 106 anti-slavery societies existed in the 
South against only 'J4 in the North? Have we not also shown 
in the same chapter that the 106 Southern anti-slave societies 
had a membership of 5,150 against 920 in the 24 Northern so- 
cieties? Have we not also shown in the chapter, Section 6, that 
Maryland had, in 1860, according to the United States census, 
no less than 83,743 free negroes against 86,990 slaves? Is there 
no significance in the fact that the number of slaves in this State 
exceeded the number of free blacks by only 3,247 ? Have we 
not shown by the same census that Virginia had in 1860 no 
less than 30,643 free blacks? Is there no significance in the fact 
that the three oldest Southern States had in 1860, no less than 
a total of 172,248 free blacks? Have we not also shown in the 
same chapter, and by the same census, that the total number oi 
free negroes in the North in 1860 was only 268,817 against 247,- 
817 in the South? Is there no significance in the fact that the 
Northern States had in 1860 only 21,000 free negroes in excess 
of those in the South? Do not these and kindred facts teach 
that the war waged by the North to free the slaves was not nec- 
essary, to say nothing of its unconstitutionality? That is. do 
they not teach that the South, in her own good time, would have 
freed her slaves, just as did the North, if let alone, and for rea- 
sons very similar to those of the North, viz : Because the insti- 
tution did not pay. We mean that it was not beneficial to the 
people of the Southern States as a whole. Search the records, 
and it will be ascertained that the institution of slavery, during 
all its continuous existence from the beginning of the historical 
period, was a hindranre rather than an advantage to governmen- 
tal progress. While it may have brought comfort and ease and 
abundance to the comparatively few its tendency was to deprive 
the great majority of the same blessings by retarding the wheels 
of progress. 

The fifth and last demand of this extremist, like the other four. 
was but the voice of the Constitution itself. It simply demand- 
ed that citizens of other States should be forbidden to invade 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 157 

another for the purpose of inciting insurrections or "committing 
any act against the laws of nations, or government of any other 
State." This demand was in general terms, and apphed to all 
teh States, but with special emphasis to the States of the South. 
For these, it was both just and imperative. Wild and extrav- 
agant opinions as to the institution of slavery had kindled a kind 
of frenzy in the minds of a large class of our Northern citizens. 
These threatened to invade the South and excite insurrections 
among the slaves, thus endangering both life and property. 

This demand was but the substance of a bill, introduced the 
previous year, by Mr. Douglas, in the United States Senate. It 
was to this bill that Mr. Lincoln referred in one of his six ex- 
travagant specifications as to "what will satisfy the South," as 
follows : "Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and en- 
forced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether 
made in politics, in pulpits, or in private." (See Chapter 10 
this Volume.). Can a bill, the very essence of both the spirit and 
letter of the Constitution, be seditious? Sedition is but one 
degree below insurrection. It is local insurrection. It is to 
the civil authority what mutiny is to the military. Can a bill 
intended to enforce the fundamental law of the land be considered 
an open resistance to governmental authority? Can an act in- 
tended to suppress all attempts to excite opposition to civil au- 
thority be sedition? On the contrary, sedition is a rising in 
opposition to the enforcement of law. This bill was in the name 
of law and for the enforcement of law — not against it. It was 
in the highest sense a patriotic measure as broad as the terms 
of the Constitution, and if it had been enacted into law, it would 
have been as beneficent as broad. Besides think of Douglas, 
United States Senator from Lincoln's own State, Illinois, mtro- 
ducing in the Senate a "sedition bill." Was Douglas guilty of 
sedition? This is the charge. We feel like apologizing for 
giving so much consideration to such an absurdity. We would 
not have been guihy of this trespass on propriety had not this 
charge of sedition been made by Mr. Lincoln in his famous 
Cooper Institute Speech. 

Thus all these five demands of Mr. Toombs, made in the name 



158 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of his State and of the South, were but so many earnest plead- 
ings for the enforcement of the Constitution, as interpreted by 
the Courts and the Fathers. They proclaim to the world, — and 
the voice of their proclamation will never die out, — that every 
heart-throb of the South was for the Constitution and the Union 
of the Constitution — not the Union of a vSubstitute. With the 
poet, the South's one earnest exclamation was : 

"How could my hand rebel against my heart?" 

Referring to these demands Mr. Toombs asks : "Are they 
not right? Are they not just?" He reasons from the stand- 
point of the Constitution, the one basis for the just settlement 
of all questions between the States ; and, therefore, from the 
standpoint of morality as well. Mr. Lincoln, on the contrary, 
reasons from the standpoint of "the wrong of slavery," calling it 
"the precise question," overlooking the fact that in the first half 
of the ITtli century the Virginia Burgesses, made no less than 
28 fruitless efforts to arrest the slave trade; overlooking the 
fact that \"irginia's failure was greatly due to the New England 
States by their very active and very extensive interest in the 
slave traffic, Massachusetts alone having more than 20 slave ships 
of her own on the ocean at once, plying between this country and 
Guinea, to say nothing of the other States; overlooking the fact 
that "the famous New England rum was the foundation of the 
African slave-trade." (Moore's Hist, of Slavery in Mass., p. 96). 

From a moral standpoint it was impossible to consider, apart 
from the Constitution, any question growing out of this institu- 
tion. Mr. Lincoln, therefore, erred in assuming that "the wrong 
of slavery" was the precise question ; and Mr. Toombs and the 
South and the Supreme Court were right in assuming that "the 
precise question" was fidelity to the Constitution. 

What statesman, what philosopher, what historian, what jur- 
ist has accepted the challenge of Mr. Toombs : "Take them in 
detail and show that they (his five demands) are not warranted 
by the Constitution, by the safety of our people, by the princi- 
ples of eternal justice!" INIore than six decades have passed and 
no one yet has been bold enough to buckle on the armor of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 159 

the Constitution, and accept the challenge. It is the challenge 
of the South. She has adopted it as her own. It stands upon 
the bloody plane of dispute a tower of strength in the South's 
defense. Around its base are impregnable ramparts mounted 
with the guns of the Constitution. There it stands in the sun- 
light of Heaven unassailed and unassailable. If that tower shall 
ever fall it will be by a traitor's hand, and beneath its ruins 
win be found the wreck of the Constitution. 

"Senators, I have little care to dispute remedies with you un- 
less you propose to redress my wrongs. If you propose that 
I will listen with respectable deference, but when the objectors 
to my remedies propose no adequate ones of their own, I know 
what thev mean by the objection. They mean submission. But 
still I will yet argue it with them." 

With what reluctance did the South abandon the hope of sav- 
ing the Union and the Constitution unimpaired? "If you pro- 
pose that I will listen with respectful deference" comes not from 
the mind and heart of a traitor. "They mean submission. But 
still I will yet argue it with them," are the words of a patriot 
entertaining a lingering hope that by "arguing it with them" 
he may be able to convince them that the South loves the Union 
and the Constitution inviolate with an undying passion ; and, 
thus soften the aperity of their minds, and hearts. The tnie, 
patriot turns a listening ear to every whisper of hope. His 
heart throb quickens at the least probability of an opporutnity 
to save his distracted country from disaster. His love for his 
country turns a deaf ear to all insults, — to all threats. He sub- 
ordinates pride and all else, except principle, to the one burning 
passion of his soul. 

Measure this proud Southerner by his own words : "They 
mean submission. But still I will yet argue with them." Con- 
fessedly, he stands before the American Senate among the nob- 
lest specimens of American citizenship and x\merican patrio- 
tism ; — a citizenship and a patriotism that can not separate an 
inviolate Constitution from an inviolate Union. Is such a 
citizenship — such a patriotism as this to be condemned? Can 
an impaired Constitution stand for an unimpaired Union? 



1(10 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

If there is yet a lingering doubt as to the intense devotion of 
Toombs and the State of Georgia to the Constitution and the 
Union, may it not be removed by these additional words of his : 

"Sir, I have no hesitation in saying that a very large portion 
of the people of Georgia, whom I represent, prefer to remain 
in the Union with their Constitutional rights. I would say at 
least 90 per cent, of them, — believing it to be a good Govern- 
ment. These are my opinions ; they have been announced to my 
constituents : and I announce them here." This is not the first 
time Mr. Toombs had uttered these words. They had been ut- 
tered in Georgia and naturally met with uanimous approval. 
As with Georgia, so with the entire South, for Georgia, the 
Empire State, was truly a representative State. As with Toombs, 
so with all the leaders of the South. Words like these of Toombs 
find origin only in patriotic brains, burn only in patriotic hearts, 
and find utterance only on patriotic lips. 

May it not be that these and kindred expressions from the 
many Southern leaders led Lincoln and his party to believe that 
the South would yield her Constitutional rights rather than aban- 
don the Union? Had not Lincoln said to the South: "But 
you will not break up the Union rather than submit to a denial 
of your Constitutional rights?" Can it be doubted that it was 
just such patriotic utterances of devotion to the L^nion and the 
Constitution of the Union by the many Southern leaders, that 
inspired the leaders of the new party to believe that they could 
go to any length in trespassing on the Constitution without 
bringing disaster to the Union? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE SOUTH'S DEMANDS FOR THE CONSTI- 
TUTION CONTINUED, ALSO THE SPEECH 
OF TOOMBS CONTINUED. 

As the earth in her orbit is ever true to the sun so was the 
impulsive Toombs ever true to the Constitution. It was his 
only hope, — his only remedy for the perils of the hour. It was 
his passionate theme, — both the warf and woof of his argument. 
Hear him : 

"Senators, the Constitution is a compact. It contains all our 
obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people 
are nominated in the Bond, and they wisely exclude any con- 
clusion against them by declaring that the powers not delegated 
by it to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, be- 
longed to the States respectively, or to the people. 

These are almost the identical words of the 10th amendment 
to the Constitution, which reads as follows: "The powers not 
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibit- 
ed by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or 
to the people." 

"Now I will try it by that standard. I will subject it to that 
test. The law of nature, the law of justice would sa}— and it 
is so expounded by the publicists— that equal rights in the com- 
mon property shall be enjoyed. Even in a monarchy the king 
cannot prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in the dis- 
position of public property. Even in a despotic government this 
principle is recognized. It was the blood and the money of the 
whole people (says the learned Grotius and say all the publicists) 
which acquired the public property, and therefore it is not the 
property of the sovereign. This right of equality being, then, 
according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all 
the States, when did we give it up ? 

"You say Congress has a right to pass rules and regulations 
concerning the territories and other property of the United 



162 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

States. Very well. Does that exclude those whose money and 
blood paid for it? Does "dispose of" mean to rob the rightful 
owners?" 

Mr. Toombs's premises here are unimpeachable. Therefore his 
conclusions are irrefutable. Equal rights in common property 
is self-evident. 

"But you say try the right. I agree. But how? By our 
judgment? No, not until the last resort. What then? By 
yours? No, not until the same time. How then try it? The 
South has always said by the Supreme Court. But that is in 
our favor, and Lincoln says he will not stand by that judgment. 
Then each must judge for himself of the mode and manner of 
redress. But you deny us that privilege, and finally reduce us 
to accept your judgment. We decline it. You say you will en- 
force it by executing the laws : that means your judgment of what 
the laws ought to be. The Senator from Kentucky comes to your 
aid, and says he can find no Constitutional right of secession. 
Perhaps not, but the Constitution is not t!ie place to look for 
State Rights. If that right belonged to the independent States 
and they did not cede it to the Federal Government it is reserved 
to the States, or the people. Ask your commentator where he 
gets your right to judge for us. Is it in the Bond? 

"The South has always said by the Supreme Court." "And 
Ivincoln says he will not stand by that judgment" are two indis- 
putable propositions. The Constitution is meaningless, if not 
binding on all the States alike. Who stands by the Constitution 
here, the South or the new party? Who then are the con- 
spirators? 

There are two other significant statements suggested, one by 
this speech and one by the Cooper Institute speech, viz : Lincoln 
says substantially, "What is not written in the Constitution is 
reserved for the Federal Government," and fails to sustain his 
assertion by the Constitution. Toombs says. "What is not writ- 
ten in the Constitution is reserved for the States," and sustains his 
assertion by quoting from the 10th amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, which amendment reads as follows : "The powers not dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 163 

by it belongs to the States respectively, or the people." Who 
are the conspirators here? 

Mr. Toombs : "The Supreme Court has decided that, by the 
Constitution, we have a right to go to the Territories, and be 
protected there, with our property. You say we cannot decide 
the compact for ourselves. Well, can the Supreme Court de- 
cide it for us? Mr. Lincoln says he does not care what the 
Supreme Court decided, he will turn us out anyway. He says 
this in his debate with the honorable Senator from Illinois (Mr. 
DouglasV I have it before me. He •^ni'l he would vote agninst 
the decision of the Supreme Court. Then you do not accept that 
arbiter. You will not take my construction ; you will not take 
the Supreme Court as an arbiter ; you will not take the practice 
of the Government ; you will not take the opinion of Madison 
upon the very question of prohibition, in 1820 ; you will not take 
the treaties under Jefferson and Madison. What, then, will you 
take? You will take nothui?: but vour own judgment; that is, 
you will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the 
practice of the Government, but you drive us out simply because 
you will do it. Your party says you will not take the decision 
of the Supreme Court You said so at Chicago ; you said so in 
committee : every man of you in both Houses say so. What are 
you going to do ? You say we shall submit to your construction. 
We shall do it if you can make us ; but not otherwise, or in 
any other manner. That's settled." 

"Your party says you wdll not take the decision of the Su- 
preme Court. You said so at Chicago; you said so in committee, 
every man of you (of the new party) in both Houses say so," 
are as many indisputable historical facts. Who then are the 
conspirators? 

M,r. Toombs : "You have no warrant in the Constitution for 
this declaration of outlawry. The court says you have no right 
to make it. The treaty says you shall not do it The treaty of 
1803 declares that the propertv of the people shall be protected 
by the Government until they are admitted into the Union as a 
State. That treatv covers Kansas and Nebraska. The law 
passed in 1804, or 1805, under Jefferson, protects property in 



:64 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

slaves in that very territory. In 18-20, when the question of pro- 
hibition came up, Mr. Madison declared is was warranted by the 
Constitution, and Jefferson denounced its abetters as enemies of 
the human race Here is the court ; here are our fathers ; here 
is contemporaneous exposition for fifty years, all asserting our 
right. The Republican party says, "We care not for your pre- 
cedents, or practices ; we have progressive politics as well as pro- 
gressive religion. " Who are the conspirators? 

"But no matter what may be our grievances, the honorable 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Crittenden) says we cannot 
secede. Well, what can we do? We cannot revolutionize; he 
will sav that is treason. What can we do? Submit? They say 
they are the strongest, and they will hang us. Very well. T 
suppose we are to be thankful for that boon. We will take that 
risk. We will stand by the right ; we wiU take the Constitution ; 
we will defend it by the sword with the halter around our 
necks. Will that satisfy the Honorable Senator from Kentucky? 
You cannot intimidate my constituents by talking to them about 
treason. They are ready to fight for the righr with the rope 
around their necks !" 

What have we here but strange fact that the very men who 
are violating the Constitution are charging treason to those who 
are upholding it! If there is a well established fact in history 
it is that Lincoln and the Republican party in the Sixties violated 
the Constitution. 

Mr. Toombs : "But, although I insist upon this perfect equal- 
ity in the Territories, yet, when it was proposed, as I understand 
the Senator from Kentucky now proposes, that the line of 35 
degrees, thirty minutes shall be extended, acknowledgitig and 
protecting our property on the South side of that line, for the 
sake of peace— permanent peace— I said to the Committee of 
Thirteen, and I say here, that with other satisfactory provisions, 
I would accept it." 

Who can read the facts of that perilous hour in the history 
of our country and not realize that the Constitution was vio- 
lated—persistently violated— and that its violators were or- 
ganized and determined to sustain its violation ; and, moreover, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 165 

that they charged the true friends of the Constitution wih con- 
spiracy ? 

Mr. Toombs: "Yet not only did your committee refuse that, 
but my distinguished friend from Mississippi (Mr. Davis) — an- 
other modest gentleman like myself — proposed simply to get 
recognition that we had the right to our own ; that man could 
have property in man ; and it met with the unanimous refusal 
even of the most moderate, union-saving, compromising portion 
of the Republican party. They do not intend to acknowledge it." 
If slavery was wrong it was a wrong engrafted in the Consti- 
tution, — yea, in both Constitutions and in every Colonial Char- 
ter. It was therefore, a wrong protected by the Constitution ; and 
should have been treated as such. Before entering on the execu- 
tion of his office as President, Mr. Lincoln took the following 
oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I 
will faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and 
defend the Constitution of the United States." In taking that 
oath he swore "to preserve, defend, and protect" the institution 
of slavery. Instead he denounced it as a wrong, and most bit- 
terly opposed it. He also swore to construe the Constitution as 
determined by the judges of the Supreme Court. But instead he 
derided that court's decision, organized opposition to it, and 
boldly combatted it. He thus inaugurated a war called "the 
mightiest struggle in the history of the world — a struggle in 
which over 3,700,000 soldiers were engaged ; which cost the 
North alone eight billion dollars ($8,000,000,000) ; and which 
cost the South untold wealth ; and in patriot lives on both sides 
approaching a million — about one patriot life to every four negroes 
When we speak of the wrong of slavery, let it not be con- 
sidered apart from the infinitely greater wrong that cost so 
much in treasure and in blood. Is the negro worth the price paid 
for his freedom? 

Mr. Toombs : "Very well, you not only want to break down 
our Constitutioual rights ; you not only upturn our social system ; 
your people not only steal our slaves, and make them freemen to 
vote against us, but you seek to bring an inferior race m a con- 



166 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

dition of equality, socially and politically, with our own people. 
Well, sir, the question of slavery moves not the people of Georgia 
one-half as the fact that you insult their rights as a community. 
You abolitionists are right when you say there are thousands 
and tens of thousands of men in Georgia, who do not own 
slaves. A very large portion of the people of Georgia own none of 
them. In the mountains, there are comparatively but few of 
them ; but no part of our people are more loyal to their race 
and country than our bold and brave mountain population : and 
every flash of the electric wire bringe me cheering news from our 
mountain tops, and our valleys, that these sons of Georgia are 
excelled by none of their countrymen in loyalty to the rights, 
the honor and the glory of the commonwealth. They say, this is 
our question ; we want no negro equality, no negro citizenship ; 
we want no mongrel race to degrade our own ; and, as one man, 
they would meet you upon the border with sword in one hand, 
and the torch in the other. We will tell you when we choose to 
abolish this thing. It must be done under our direction, and 
according to our will ; our own, our native land, shall determine 
this question, and not the abolitionists of the North. That is- 
the spirit of our freemen." 

Truly did Mr. Toombs exclaim: "Sir, the question of slavery 
moves not the people of Georgia one-half as the fact that you 
insult their rights as a community." Not only did the aggres- 
sions of the North involve and threaten the Constitutional rights 
of the South, but also threatened ruin to her entire social sys- 
tem. Was not this great cause for alarm? Did it not justify 
the strongest possible opposition on the part of the South? If 
the Supreme Court is authority the South had the right on her 
side. Then, l^y what principle of right could the North charge 
the South with conspiracy, rebellion and treason? On the con- 
trary will not the impartial future historian lay the charge of 
conspiracy, and treason at the door of the violators of the Con- 
stitution, the one standard of right ratified by the two sections? 

Mr. Toombs also intimates that the South, if let alone, would 
have abolished the institution of slavery when he said "It must 
be done under our direction, and according to our will ; our own. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 167 

our native land, shall determine this question." Again we are 
reminded of the vicious encroachment of the North, and of 
their hypocritical cry of "treason," in their unconstitutional ag- 
gressions upon the rights of the South. Is this language too 
strong? If so, our plea is, it is the language of facts, not ours. 
Alexander H. Stephens in his great work. The War Between 
the States" refers to Mr. Toombs's eloquent reference to the 
patriotism of the non-slaveholders in Georgia, and sustains him 
in these words : "They were as truly 'loyal' to the Constitution, 
as it stood in this particular, as any class in the commonwealth, 
and were as ready to defend the principles of that Constitution, 
by defending the Sovereign Rights of the States, 'even with the 
rope around their necks,' as their slaveholding neighbors. In- 
deed I think he (Toombs) might have gone further, with truth, 
that they were even readier ; for, in this State I believe a ma- 
jority of the slaveholders were against the policy of secession at 
the time. They were generally what were called conservatives, 
and a large portion of them, if not a majority of them, voted the 
Bell Everett ticket in the Presidential election. My opinion is, 
that a majority of them, in this State, voted against secession 
delegates to the Convention which was called in this State." (Vol. 
2, pp. 127-8). 

Can it be doubted that the supposed weakness of the South 
invited the assaults of the Republican party upon her Constitu- 
tional rights? There was a time in the history of our country 
when New England, for reasons satisfactory to herself, threat- 
ened to secede from the Union. The two sections were then 
equally divided as to States, and nearly so as to population, and 
a Southerner was at the helm of the Government. Secession 
then was declared by the North to be Constitutional and right. 
It was further declared that it could be accomplished without 
the shedding of blood. But in the Sixties the North had the 
greater number of States and far excelled the South in popula- 
tion and the essentials of war. Besides, they were in possession 
of the Government, and believed the non-slaveholding population 
of the South were their natural allies. This great advantage 



16S RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

reversed their opinion as to the Constitutional right of secession 
and inaugurated the great war. 

Mr. Stephens further remarks upon this particular portion of 
Mr. Toombs's speech, as follows: "But mark you, when and 
where was this speech made? It was made on the 7th of Jan- 
uary, 1861, in the Senate of the United States, two days after 
you say the conspirators aiming at the overthrow of the Govern- 
ment had organized in secret junto at Washington ! Is anything 
wanting more thoroughly to refute that idea than this speech ? It 
clearly shows that on the 7th of January, 1861, after South Caro- 
lina had seceded, as we have seen — after the conspiracy had 
entered into a regular organization, with a usurpation of all 
power over Southern public affairs, according to this fabulous 
account of it, that Mr. Toombs, and even Mr. Davis, who was 
the selected chief, were willing to settle the whole controversy, if 
any assurance would be given by the leading men of the party 
coming into power on the 4th of the ensuing March, that clearly 
stipulated guarantees of the Constitution would be carried out 
in good faith by them? This assurance, it is well known, was 
not given. It was refused to be given. This is a correct version 
of that matter. The whole story of any such conspiracy, and the 
election of Mr. Davis as President of a new dynasty, is altogether 
fabulous. 

"After this refusal, if the Senators — the Ambassadors of the 
Southern States at Washington — did assemble together in that 
city, and did jointly resolve upon such action as they thought 
best for the people of their States, respectively, to adopt in their 
State Conventions, then called by the regular constituted au- 
thorities, in this emergency; and if, after this meeting and con- 
sidtat'on, Mv. Toombs, one of them, did go into the Senate, 
nnd there deliver this manifesto, and make another appeal for the 
Union, after the advice was given, who can justly maintain that 
thev, in the performance of this high dutv, were a set of secret 
conspirators or anything like it- It is notorious that they did 
so meet, so consult, and so advise. But their meeting was no 
secret. Nothing was more generally known in Washington. It 
was announced in the newspapers of the day. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 169 

.... "The object of their assembling was to advise such 
course as they thought best for the people of the Southern States, 
in which conventions were then called, to pursue in the crisis 
then impending-, if no assurance should be given that the Consti- 
tution would be maintained. There was no such thing as the 
election of a Chief Commander of a military force, or any usur- 
pation of power whatever. The Sovereign people of these States 
were left to their own free will to adopt the policy they advised. 
or reject it as they pleased. The sum and substance of the ad- 
vice was embodied in this speech of Toombs. Their wrongs de- 
manded redress, and if it were not granted that they should 
'depart in peace,' and form a new Constitution amongst them- 
selves. The redress was not given, and these States did depart 
in peace. They also passed ordinances of secession as South 
Carolina had done, and in convention at Montgomery formed a 
new Confederation" 

Here we have the high aulhority of Alexander H. Stephens 
that both Mr. Toombs and Mr. Davis "were willing to settle the 
Avhole controversy if any assurance would be given by the leading 
men of the party coming into power on the ensuing 4th of March 
that the clearly stipulated guarantees of the Constitution would 
be carried out in good faith by them." This was refused. What 
was refused? Nothing less than "the clearly stipulated guaran- 
tees of the Constitution " Think of it ! The South was denied 
her Constitutional guarantees ! \Yhen she complained, as she had 
a right to do, she was charged with conspiracy, rebellion and 
treason. Was it rebellion to claim her constitutional guarantees? 
On the other hand who can deny that it was treason to refuse 
the South her constitutional rights ? Was not this denial perjury ? 
— that is in violation of the oaths of every State in the Union, 
and of every Federal State officer? Had not the South great 
cause for alarm ^ Could she put implicit confidence in a party 
untrue to their oaths? Had not her representatives in Washing- 
ton a right to assemble and consider as to the best policy to be 
pursued in this emergency? Yea, was it not their duty to do 
so? When they exercised this right as freemen, after having 
published to the world that the emergency, created by the 



170 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

enemies of the Constitution required them to meet, were they 
justly termed conspirators and guilty of other crimes? Could 
the South believe that one violation — a confessed violation jf the 
Constitution — would not be followed by another, and yet an- 
other, till she was robbed of all her Constitutional guarantees? 
Yea, was not this usurpation followed in reality by others till 
men in this free Republic were arrested without warrant or law 
on the mere suspicion of opposing the policy of the party in 
power? Did not Mr. Seward finally boast that he could touch 
a button on his table and order the arrest of anv man he should 
designate, and throw him into prison without the right of trial? 
In a future chapter we shall establish this fact and others equally 
as astounding. 

PAUSE HERE AND REFLECT. 

We have quoted freely from two speeches — the first by Abra- 
ham Lincoln of Illinois ,the other by Robert Toombs of Georgia. 
Every thread of that of Toombs's is spun from the pure lint of 
the Constitution. This is not the mere utterance of a Confederate 
veteran. It is but the voice of facts. It is a most eloquent plea 
for the Union of the Constitution intact. Not a thread of the 
oration of Mr. Lincoln is taken from the Constitution. It also 
claims to be a plea for the Union, but not the Union of the Con- 
stitution inviolate. 

That the reader may be the better prepared to compare the 
Constitutional merits of these two speeches we shall now pro- 
ceed to set, side by side, some of the leading sentiments of 
each. 

Mr. Lincoln. "But you will break up the Union rather than 
submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights." 

Mr. Toombs: "Senators, my countrymen, have demanded no 
new Constitution — no new Government; thev have demanded 
not a single thing except that you shall abide by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States." 

Mr. Lincoln: "When you make these declarations you have 
a specific and well understood allusion to an assumed Constitu- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 171 

tional right of yours to take slaves into the Federal Territory 
and hold them as property." 

Mr. Toombs : "The Supreme Court has decided that we have 
a right to go to the Territories with our property, and be pro- 
tected there." 

Mr. Lincoln : "But no such right is specifically written in 
the Constitution. 

Mr. Toombs : "I say the Constitution is the whole compact. 
All the obligations, all the claims that fetter the limbs of my 
people are nominated in the bond, and they wisely exclude any 
conclusions against them by declaring that powers not delegated 
by it to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, be- 
long to the States respectively, or to the people." 

The Constitution : "The powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States,. 
are reserved to the States respecti\ely or to the people." (Ap- 
pendix Con., Art. 10). 

Mr. Lincoln : "But we, on the other hand, deny that any 
such right has any existence in the Constitution." 

Mr. Toombs: "The discontented States of this Union have 
demanded nothing but clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowl- 
edged Constitutional rights — rights affirmed by the highest trib- 
unal of their country. Not only the Federal Courts, but all 
the local Courts in all the States, decided that this was a Con- 
stitutional provision. Nobody then had invented pretexts to- 
show that the Constitution did not mean a negro slave." 

Mr. Lincoln : "Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has 
settled this disputed Constitutional question in your favor .... 
The Court has decided the question in a sort of way. The 
Court has substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to 
take slaves into the Federal Territory, and to hold them as- 
property." 

Mr. Toombs : "The Supreme Court has decided in our favor^ 
and Lincoln says he will not stand by that judgment." 

Mr. Lincoln : "When I say the decision was made in a sort 
of a way I mean that it was made in a divided court by a bare 
majority of the judges." 

Mr. Toombs: "The decision was rendered in our favor by 



172 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the highest tribunal in the Country by a majority of seven 
to two." 

Mr. Lincoln : "The decision was mainly based upon a mis- 
taken fact — the statement that the right of property in a slave 
is directly and expressly written in the Constitution." 

M;r. Toombs : "Then you will not accept that arbiter. You 
will not take the Supreme Court as an arbiter ; you will not 
take the practice of the Government ; you will not take the trea- 
ties under Jefferson and Madison; you will not take the opin- 
ions of Madison upon the prohibition in 1820." 

Mr. Lincoln : "When the obvious mistake of the Judges shall 
be brought to their notice is it not reasonable that they will 
withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the Conclu- 
sion?" 

Mr. Toombs : "You will take nothing but your own judg- 
ment. You will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard 
the Court, not only discard our construction, not only discard 
the practice of the Government, but you drive us out because 
you will it." 

Mr. Lincoln: "Do you really feel yourselves justified to 
break up the Government unless such a Court's decision as vo\irs 
is to be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of 
action ?" 

Mr. Toombs: "You have no warrant in the Constitution for 
this declaration of outlawry. The Court says you have no right 
to make it. The treaty says you shall not do it. The treaty of 
1803 declares that the property of the people shall be protected 
by the Government until thev are admitted into the Union as 
a State. Here is the Court ; here are our fathers ; here is con- 
temporaneous exposition for fiftv years, all asserting our right." 

Mr. Lincoln: "It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of 
this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one 
with another." 

Mr. Toombs : "We will stand by the right, we will take the 
Constitution ; we will defend it by the sword with the halter 
around our necks. You not only want to break down our Con- 
stitutional rights ; you not only upturn our social system, but 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 173 

you seek to bring an inferior race in a condition of equality, 
socially and politically with our own people. Sir, the question 
of slavery moves not the people of Georgia one-half as the fact 
that ycu insult their rights as a community." 

Mr. Lincoln: "Will the Southern people be satisfied if the 
Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them?" 

M|r. Toombs : "Sir, I have no hesitation in saying a very 
large portion of the people of Georgia, whom I represent, pre- 
fer to remain in the Union with their Constitutional rights. But 
you say try the right. I agree. But how? By our judg- 
ment? No, not until the last resort. What then? By yours? 
No, not until the same time. How then try it? The South has 
always said by the Supreme Court.... But you deny us that 
privilege." 

Mr. Lincoln : "We must not only let them alone but we 
must convince them that we do let them alone." (A sad com- 
mentary on the acts of the new party). 

Mr. Toombs: "The law of nature, the law of justice would 
say--and it is expounded by the publicists — that equal rights in 
the common property shall be enjoyed. Even in a monarchy 
the king cannot prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in 
the disposition of public property." 

Mr. Lincoln : "I am aware they have not as yet in terms 
demanded an overhthrow of the free State Constitutions. When 
all other sayings against it shall have been silenced the over- 
throw of the free State Constitutions will be demanded, and 
nothing will be left to resist their demands." 

Mr. Toombs: "Take them (his five demands) in detail and 
show that they are not warranted by the Constitution, by the 
safety of our people, by the principles of eternal justice." "Sen- 
ators, I have little care to dispute remedies with you unless you 
propose to redress my wrongs. If you propose that I will lis- 
ten with respectful deference." 

Mr. Lincoln: "The Northern people must first cease to call 
slavery wrong and join in calling it right." 

Mr. Toombs: "But when the objectors to my remedies pro- 



174 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

pose no adequate ones of their own, I know what they mean. 
They mean submission. But still I will argue it with them." 

Mr. Lincoln : "Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted 
and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, 
whether made in politics, in pulpits, or in private." 

Mr. Toombs : "The Constitution of the United States now 
requires and gives Congress express powers to define and punish 
piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses 
against the laws of nations. When the honorable and distin- 
guished Senator (Mr. Douglas) from Illinois, last year intro- 
duced a bill for the purpose of punishing those offending under 
that clause of the Constitution, Mr. Lincoln, in his speech de- 
clared that it was a sedition bill ; his press and party hooted at 
it. So far from recognizing the bill as intended to carry out 
the Constitution of the United States it received their jeers and 
gibes." 

Mr. Lincoln : "The North must pull down their free Consti- 
tutions." 

Mr. Toombs : "Sir. they have stood by your Constitutiot; 
they have stood by all its requirements ; they have performed all 
its duties, unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly." 

Mr. Lincoln : "The whole atmosphere must be disinfected 
from all opposition to slavery." 

Mr. Toombs : "You say Congress has the right to pass rules 
and regulations concerning the territories and other property 
of the United States. Does that exclude those whose money 
and blood paid for it? Does 'dispose of mean to rob the right- 
ful owners?" 

Mr. Lincoln: "The North must arrest and return their fugi- 
tive slaves with greedy pleasure." 

Mr. Toombs: "By the text and letter of the Constitution 
you agreed to give them up. You have broken your oaths." 

The Constitution : "No person held to service or labor in 
one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, in con- 
sequence of any law, or regulation therein, shall be discharged 
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 175 

of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." Art. 
4, Sec. 2.) 

Alexander Hamilton : "The Federal Constitution therefore 
decided with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it 
views them as in the mixed character of persons and property. 
This is in fact their true character bestowed on them by the 
laws under which we live." (The Federalist No. 53, David- 
son's Edition, p. 379). The Constitution of every slave State 
so regarded it. All the Northern States so regarded it, for 
more than a full century. The framers of the Constitution so 
regarded it. The New England slavers so regarded it. The 
Northern merchants so regarded it. The New England slave 
markets for many years so regarded it. The entire history of 
the South, from the settlement of Jamestown to the termination 
of the war, in one unbroken affirmation declared it. Yet 
against all this testimony, and more, is opposed the word of 
Lincoln. When the result is considered one is almost persuad- 
ed, even against his will, that this world is controlled by fate. 
He acquired such control of affairs, such political influence that 
he successfully charged the Constitution-loving South with that 
highest of political crimes, treason , even though the charge was 
false ; and upon that false charge inaugurated a war that com- 
pletely exhausted the resources of one section, and drained-bil- 
lions of treasure from the other, while it approximately claimed 
a million of lives, infinitely more valuable than all the billions 
in treasure, spent in its successful execution. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
THE SOUTH AND THE CONSTITUTION SUB- 
ORDINATED TO AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL 
PLATFORM AND THE GOVERNMENT 
TO AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL POLICY. 

When the Revohitionary War had been fought to a success- 
ful finish there existed in this country thirteen free and inde- 
pendent sovereignties. They were first independent States by 
their own declarations. Afterwards they were independent. 
States by virtue of the acknowledgment of Great Britain. 

During the War of the Revolution they had united for their 
mutual protection under a compact known as the Confederation. 
This Confederation embraced a territory of wide extent, in 
which both the climate and the products varied. As some States 
ovv^ned larger extent of territory than others, rivalries and con- 
flicts of interest soon developed. These threatened the stability 
of the Union. 

It was now that Virginia, the Old Dominion, in the royal 
spirit of patriotism and good will to the Union, ceded to the 
United States her vast extent of territory north of the Ohio. Out 
of that territory five great States and a part of another have 
since been formed. This gift of Virginia laid the basis for the 
predominance of the Northern Section, and was the cause of 
increased strife rather than pacification. 

In 1820 the South, in the spirit of sacrifice, gave to the North 
exclusive control of all the Louisiana Purchase lying north of 
36 degrees, 30, not included in the State of Missouri. She well 
knew the Constitution did not demand this sacrifice, but it was 
made to preserve the Union of the States. Little did she dream 
then that she v^'as laying the basis for an offensive aggression that 
would finally threaten her own destruction. 

This line, continued, embraced the territory acquired from. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 177 

Texas. Add to these all the land both north and south of that 
line all the territory obtained from Mexico iinSer the Treaty of 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, and we see the North in control of at least 
three-fourths of all the territory added to the public domain since 
1776. 

Nor was this all. The South had been burdened by discrim- 
inating duties on imports in favor of the North. The manufac- 
turing section was built up at the expense of the South, the ag- 
ricultural section. With more territory, more money and more 
varied employment the North offered "[-reater inducements for 
imigrants. As the population and wealth of the North increas- 
ed her demands for new advantages increased. These demands 
finally disregarded all Constitutional limits. Political greed is 
individual greed on a larger scale. With delusive phrases, com- 
miserating the poor black man, far better off than nine-tenths 
of the Northern poor, they did not hesitate to attack every Con- 
stitutional clause in the way of their ambition. This accounts 
for their violent opposition to the Supreme Court decision to 
which we have referred in the chapters immediately preceding 
this. 

To accomplish their purposes they invented three strange con- 
stitutions, known as "The Higher Law," "The Common Law," 
and "The Unwritten Constitution," placing each above the writ- 
ten. About these so-called Constitutions we shall have little 
to say at present, as we shall devote a chapter to them and num- 
erous other irrelevant excuses for violating that matchless doc- 
ument, formulated in 1787. AH other so-called Constitutions 
were the product of the rankest sectionalism. 

The force of that sectionalism was felt in the John Brown 
raid ; in the increased number of insurrections in the Southern 
States ; and in the disquiet and uneasiness in all the South's de- 
mestic institutoins. But it was felt most when it laid it, bloody 
hands oii the common Constitution, the Bond of the States in 
Union, and pulled from its lofty eminence the third great De- 
partment of our Government and subordinated it in rank to a 
party platform. And this was done in the name of the Union 



178 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

it professed to love, and in the name of the Constitution it vio- 
lated while professing to adore it ! 

It is now the 16th of May 1860. A Convention is assembled 
in Chicag-o to nominate a candidate for President of the L'nited 
States. Not a delegate is present from a State South of the 
celebrated Mason and Dixon Line. The three so-called Consti- 
tutions are displayed by the chair and all the delegates. The 
written Constitution! What of it? It is under foot, and dis- 
graced for sustaining the South in her demand for equal rights 
in the Territories. We need not name this Convention. Its 
platform,, ignoring the Constitution by ignoring the Supreme 
Court's decision, designates it as the party that nominated Lin- 
coln and Hamlin. 

On the 23rd of April, 1860, another Convention had met in 
Charleston, S. C. Douglas by a large majority was its favorite. 
But the party of three so-called Constitutions, by their published 
utterances, had rendered many Southerners very jealous of their 
Constitutional rights. They feared anything that smacked of 
the least violation of that sacred Bond that guaranteed equal 
right to all. Douglas believed that "the people of an organized 
Territory could, through their Legislature, constitutionally reg- 
ulate this subject (slavery) as rightfully as the people of a 
State." 

Many Southerners feared this construction. To them it 
seemed to have at least the shadow of a violation of the Consti- 
tution. Therefore a split resulted. The smaller part agreed to 
meet in RicTimond, Va., on the 2nd Monday in June ; the larger 
part agreed to meet in Baltimore on the 18th of June. In the 
meantime the smaller organization reconsidered, and agreed to 
meet the larger in Baltimore at the appointed time, thus man- 
ifesting a deep concern, and a patriotic desire for reconciliation. 
But the Baltimore Convention was immovable. The division 
was fixed. Douglas and Johnson headed the Baltimore division ; 
Breckenridge and Lane the other. 

To add to the confusion still another Convention met on the 
19th of May, 1860, in Baltimore, adopting the Philadelphia Con- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 179 

stitution as their platform. Bell and Everett headed their 
ticket. 

Three of these political parties represented all sections of the 
Union ; and were strictly non-sectional. Three of them declared 
their devotion to the Constitution. The fourth was openly and 
avowedly unconstitutional in as much as it rebelled against the 
decision of the Supreme Court. 

The contest was now on. The country was agitated from Maine 
to Florida, and from ocean to ocean. Forty years from this 
time a Northern historian boasted that many voters in that sec- 
tion knew little or nothing about Constitutional claims and cared 
less ; that they were influenced only by the piteous cry of liberty 
from the poor slave, knowing nothing of the benevolent and ele- 
vating environments of the negro. 

The election is over. 4,876,853 votes have been cast for all 
the candidates. Of these Lincoln and Hamlin received 1,866,- 
352. Yet under our peculiar system of voting, by "general 
ticket," he received 180 electoral votes out of 303 cast for all. 
He was, therefore, elected, — elected on strictly a sectional plat- 
form, the main plank of which was an "irresponsible conflict" 
against the Supreme Court, and hence against the Constitution. 
This was clearly contrary to the declared purpose of the Consti- 
tution, "ordained and established in order to form a more per- 
fect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, etc." 
Did not the South have just cause for alarm? Had not Lin- 
coln said, "This Government cannot exist half-slave and half 
free?" Could that have but one meaning? Had not friends 
plead in vain with him to withdraw that expression from his 
prepared speech? Did he not reply "I had rather lose the Pres- 
idency than withdraw it?" It was believed by many of his 
friends that unless he did withdraw he would meet with defeat 
through the use of the eloquent Douglas would make of it. But 
Lincoln was a shrewder politician than all of them. He snuflfed 
success from afar as if by instinct. 

His election emphasized this utterance of his. He knew the 
South correctly interpreted it as meaning death to her domestic 



ISO RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

institutions. That he might Wind the North to the main issue 
he had declared that the South, if let alone, would finally de- 
mand of the North to give up their free State Constitutions. 
Mr. Thorpe in "The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint," 
commenting on this particular declaration of Lincoln, says, "The 
issue was formed. The South was accusing anti-slavery of at- 
tacking and threatening to overrun the slave States ; the North 
was accusing proslavery South of attacking and seeking to over- 
run the free States." As to the South's seeking to overrun and 
attack the free States, Mr. Thorpe knew better; Mr. Lincoln 
knew better; all intelligent citizens knew better; the entire his- 
tory of this country — both Colonial and State — taught a very dif- 
ferent lesson. Mr. Toombs, in his celebrated speech to which 
we have referred, was in full accord with all the facts of history 
when he said : "We demand no power to injure any one. We 
demand no right to injure ?My one. We demand no right to 
injure our Confederate States. We demand no right to inter- 
fere with their institutions, either by word or deed. We have 
no right to disturb their peace, their tranquility, their security. 
We have demanded of them simply, solely — nothing else — to 
give us equality, security, and tranquility. Give us these and 
peace restores itself." They were not given. 

Can anyone read these clear-cut indisputable facts of history, 
and not know that the South was all the time on the defensive, 
warding off blows, and confronting this aggression and that ag- 
gression on her legal rights? This being true, who can say 
that the North was without a blemish of guilt in bringing about 
the terrible conditions of the Sixties? Yea, that she was not 
most culpably guilty? 

To have the most correct view of the condition much depends 
upon the viewpoint. Your viewpoint must be most favorable. 

Imagine yourself a citizen in the South in the fall of 1860. 
The Chief Magistrate-elect had just declared himself in "irre- 
pressible conflict" with your institutions, and, therefore, with your 
domestic tranquility, your peace and your safety. His declara- 
tion, "this country cannot permanently exist half slave and half 
free" was heard in every home; and repeated on the highways; 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 181 

and was discussed in all places of resort. To all it had the same 
terrible meaning. Picture to yourselves nearly 4,000,000 blacks 
turned loose with unbridled freedom in the midst of your wives 
and daughters, many thousands of whom being unable to 
thanks to the Northern slavers — to speak the English lan- 
guage. When you shall have done all this and more, tell us, ye 
honest yeomenry of the North, on which side would you have 
cast your lot? Tell us ye brave veterans of the North. 

Ye, who met in battle array 

The ever waning lines of gray, 
on which side would you have fought, had you been South- 
erners instead of Northerners? How would you have regarded 
the sectional endorsement of an avowedly unconstitutional party 
platform — especially when you knew the thunderings of that 
platform were but the loud reverberations of the forked light- 
nings of its rage? Tell us, were we the villains you imagined 
us? Was it culpable to resist such encroachments as these? — 
encroachments cruel and bitter, threatening destruction to our 
homes and the ruin of our entire social system? Was it treason 
in us to demand the Constitution with its plain and simple guar- 
antees as our security? 

Look all these and kindred facts squarely in the face, and tell 
us what would have been your decision as Southerners? Com- 
promises had failed till the South had begun to regard them as 
species of deception, and yet the South was still willing to com- 
promise to evade the utter overthrow of the Constitution, but 
she was denied even this means of temporary security. What 
hope for her rights, or even security, could be found in the de- 
mands of a political party whose platform dominated the Supreme 
Court, and the Constitution? To this instrument and to this 
Court — to these alone — the South looked for the protection of 
her homes and the perpetuation of her legal rights. If a sec- 
tional party, standing on a sectional platform, could override 
the Constitution for what could the South hope when that party 
should come into full possession of the Government with all its 
machinery? Had they not made manifest the thought that to 
overcome the South was an easy task? Was it not their taunt- 



1S2 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ing- boast that they could whip ihe South in "thirty or sixty or 
ninety days?" That ninety days were the utmost limit for this 
easy task was evinced by Lincoln's first call for only 75,000 men 
for only 90 days. These confident vaun tings were followed by 
falsely denouncing the South as conspirant, traitorous, rebellious 
and treasonable. All this time the South was conscious, deeply 
conscious, of the rectitude of her conduct. Panoplied in the 
armor of the Supreme Court, she had put on the whole armor 
of the Constitution, and "having done all" she resolved to stand. 
The world knows the result. 

The very reluctance of the South to resort to secession was 
against her. It invited aggressions. She loved the Constitution. 
She loved the Union. "Which way she turned" it was dark and 
troublesome. If to the Union she was met with the declared 
purpose of the dominant party to violate the Constitution, and to 
imperil every interest dear to her entire section. If she turned 
to secession she was confronted with war and the slaughter of 
her chivalry, and the wide-spread devastation of her homes and 
her fields. What should .she do? The "irresponsible conflict" 
was in the seat of power. This conflict had already been abusive 
and cruel. What would it be now ^ 

Few, comparatively few, even in the North then doubted "the 
right of a State" to withdraw its grants delegated to the Federal 
Government. In the South there was practically no division of 
sentiment as to this right. But here "it was regarded as the last 
resort." It was "to be applied only when ruin or dishonor was 
the alternative." The momentous hour now, in the beginning of 
the Sixties, was pregnant with threats of ruin to the South. 
Anxiety was upon every face and in every heart beat for the 
welfare of the South's future. The South was not responsible 
for the alarming conditions. They were thrust upon her. She 
had but two alternatives : either to remain in the Union under a 
Constitution now regarded as sectional, or to exercise her once 
universally acknowledged Constitutional right, and withdraw 
from the Union. No one can doubt the right to accede involves 
the right to secede. Under our Constitution a State once inde- 
pendent is forever independent till she expressly delegates away 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 183 

that independence. All admit that each of the thirteen original 
States were once independent States. The Constitution is evi- 
dence that in express terms not one of these States delegated 
awaits independence. Therefore each of the States were inde- 
pendent in the Sixties ; and as such had the same right to secede 
it had to accede. 

It was November 1860 when the presidential election occurred. 
Most of the State Legislatures were yet to convene in regular 
session. In some cases special sessions were convoked to con- 
sider the momentous questions of the hour. In most instances 
conventions were called. Conventions more truly represent the 
sovereign will of the people than do I^egislatures. These conven- 
tions did not question the right of secession any more than did 
New England in the early days of the Republic. It was in this 
way these States had entered the Union. In this way they should 
withdraw from the Union, if they must. They deliberated ; and 
deliberation precluded the idea of haste. They debated — earnest- 
ly debated. This precluded the idea of unanimity, and hence 
that of conspiracy. It meant they were there to weigh all ques- 
tions pertaining to their welfare and to determine what, in their 
judgment, was the best policy in the midst of the perilous condi- 
tions thrust upon them.. All the facts pertaining to these conven- 
tions clearly preclude the idea of organized conspiracy, as false- 
ly charged by the dominant unconstitutional party. 

Between the election and the inauguration about four months 
had intervened. Hence there was no necessity for haste. The 
time was ample for calm deliberation, both North and South. 
Buchanan, the out-going President, held that the Federal Gov- 
ernment had no right to coerce a State. In this decision he was 
sustained by the whole line of Presidents who preceded him. On 
the 3rd day of December, I860, in his message to Congress he 
said: "Our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be 
cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it 
cannot live in the affections of the people it must one day perish. 
Congress may possess many means of preserving it by concilia- 
tion, but the sword was not placed in their hands to preserve it 



184 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

by force." But conciliation meant the Constitution with the Su- 
preme Court, and the dominant party, as we have seen, would 
have none of that. 

In the convention of 1787 a proposition was actually made to 
authorize the employment of force against a delinquent State. To 
this proposition Mr. Madison replied : "The use of force against a 
State would look more like a declaration of war than infliction 
of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party 
attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it 
might have been bound." The convention promptly voted down 
the proposition and settled the judgment of that convention as to 
the right to use force against a State, to the right of a State to 
secede. It will be remembered that when Mr. Lincoln, in his 
Cooper Institute speech, was pretending to show by irrelevant 
votes "the intention of the fathers," he overlooked this clear-cut 
fact which admits of no doubt as to their intention. Such evi- 
dence was too conclusive for him. The stealth of the Indian 
characterized all his arguments. Would he have seen this well 
established fact of history if the presidency had not been in 
sight? Was not Lincoln human as well as we? 

At this time there were men in all the Northern States, moved 
by the lust of of self-aggrandizement. They appealed to passion. 
They incited the North against the South. They declared the 
right to coerce a State. They encouraged the policy of war against 
the South in case of secession. But there were also in the North- 
ern States men unmoved by sordid consideration. They asserted 
the right of a State to secede. Alany of these were found in the 
ranks of the dominant party. Among these was the distinguish- 
ed editor of the New York Tribune, the organ of the Abolition- 
ists. He said, "If the Southern States wish to withdraw from 
the Imion they should be allowed to do so ; that any attempt to 
compel them to remain by force would be contrary to the princi- 
ples of the Declaration of Independence, and to the fundamental 
ideas upon which human liberty is based; if the Declaration of 
Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of 
three millions of subjects in 1776, it is not seen why it would not 
iustifv the secession of five millions of Southerners from the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 185 

Union in 1861.'" He also said, "Sooner than compromise with 
the South and abandon the Chicago Platform let the Union 
slide." 

Confessing the Constitutional right of secession this great edi- 
tor placed the party platform above the Constitution — above the 
Union. Was it unnatural for the South to think it might ease 
the conscience of the party in power, if the Southern States 
•should withdraw from the Union ? Moreover, this same editor 
said, "Tf the Southern people wish to leave the Union, we will do 
our best to forward their views." Why should not that party 
have wished this? Had they not declared the Constitution "a 
'Covenant league with hell and a compact with death ?" A leading 
Boston paper had for its caption : " ACovenant with Hell." Why 
was the American Constitution termed a covenant with hell? 
:Simply because it was distinctly proslavery. It is universally ad- 
mitted that all who held these views belonged to the anti-Constitu- 
tional or Republican party It was their insidious attacks upon 
the Constitution which created the alarming conditions that 
resulted in the disruption of the Union in 1861. Who then 
caused the war? 

A few leaders of the anti-Constitutional party were honest 
enough to confess that they preferred their party platform to 
the Constitution of the Union. Among these, as we have just 
seen was the distinguished editor of the New York Tribune. 
Why did not Lincoln adopt the views of this editor? He knew, 
that without the conciliation of the South on the basis of the 
Constitution, it would mean a disrupted Union ; and that a dis- 
ruption of the Union would be justly charged to his, the anti- 
'Constitutional party, for their aggressions on the South, the Su- 
preme Court and the Constitution. This would bring upon him 
and his party the odium of having severed the Union. In short it 
would mean retreat, confession of wrong, and disaster to all his 
cherished hopes. On the other hsnd, to -eject the editor's views 
would mean to advance, to maintain their anti-Constitutional 
platform, and, if successful, would mean to reap an imperishable 
-name, even though illegally won. 



186 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

The only question now was that of success or failure. The 
penalties of failure were great. Their dreadful warnings urged 
him on with the madness of desperation. The rewards of success 
were most alluring, under whatever conditions, or by whatever 
means that success might be won. To him it justified the use of 
all means, whether legal or illegal, right or wrong, within his 
power, necessary to accomplish his purpose. His position, at the 
head of the Government, was the one of the greatest possible ad- 
vantages. All its power and all its resources were at his com- 
mand. Then, too, all its moral influence was at his back. Only 
thirty-eight and three-tenths per cent of the votes in that election 
were cast for him, yet he was elected. Even though all these 
votes were purely sectional, he construed his election to mean 
the repeal of the decision of the nation's Supreme Court, as to 
the equal rights of the Southern States in the Territories ; and to 
mean that his anti-Constitutional platform superceded the court 
and the Constitution. 

Cautious, at first, he began by declaring his purpose to enforce 
the law in the seceded States. In vain was he admonished by 
leading statesmen of the North and of all parties, that there were 
no laws to be enforced in these States ; and that the enforcement 
of the law meant war and only war. But to him the war was 
only a 30 days' job, and he turned a deaf ear to all their admoni- 
tions. 

These are the new species of patriots that laid claim to "the 
principles of the fathers." Yet hostility to the Constitution was 
as conspicuous in all their principles as the love and reverence 
for the Constitution was with the fathers. To love and cling to 
what another hates is in turn to be hated and despised. The 
Southern States loved and clung to the Constitution. They were 
therefore hated and despised. In these perilous times, rendered 
perilous by the agitators of the North, every breeze brought re- 
newed intelligence of hostility to the South. Jeers and taunts 
and bitterness and insults were the themes of the press and pulpit. 
And who were the Southerners that they should deserve these 
denunciations? Did not their future prowess on the field reveal 
them to have been princes among men ? What had they done to 
deserve anathemas from the North? Their great sin, their only 
sin, was thev had been true to the Constitution of the Union. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SOUTH, HER ACCUSERS, AND HER EF- 
FORTS TO PRESERVE THE UNION AND 
THE CONSTITUTION UNIMPAIRED. 

On the 12th day of February, 1790, just eleven months and 
eight days after the inauguration of Washington, a petition 
headed by Dr. Franklin, and having for its ultimate object the 
abolition of slavery within the States, was presented to Con- 
gress. Congress answered this petition by declaring it had "no 
authority in the emancipation of slaves." 

This was the first note of centralism under the Constitution. 
It had been heard in the convention that framed the Constitution, 
and silenced there, but not subdued. It was soon heard again, 
and again, only to be silenced. Its discordant notes were heard 
in the first judiciary act ; in the financial measures under Hamil- 
ton ; in the assumption of the State debts ; in the first appropria- 
tion bill; and loudly in the Alien and Sedition Act. 

Assuming the popular name of Federal, the Centralists were 
very bold from 1790 to 1798, when they met with an overwhelm- 
ing defeat by Thomas Jefi-'erson. There are not wanting a few 
who believe but for this defeat, their measures would have result- 
ed in war. 

They were silenced now for a longer time but still not subdued. 
They were still vigilant and hopeful. The time came when by 
"the law of climate" the Northern States had abolished slavery. 
The eagle eye of Centralism now caught the popular issue on 
which to win victory. That issue was "the wrong of slavery." 
On it the North could be united against the South. The North 
being vastly superior in numbers, in wealth, and in all the ma- 
terials of war, if victorious at polls, could easily enforce her 
demands. Another popular title was now assumed, that of Re- 
publican. It was called the new party by its advocates. But its 
title and its claims denied its tenets. It was the same old Federal 
party under a new name, with the abolition feature added. 

It is true, it did not, in express term.s, lay claim to Centralism. 
That would have been unpopular. But to be anti-Constitutional in 



188 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

a Republic of free States — that is a Republic of Republics — was to 
disregard the Constitutional ties and Constitutional restraints. 
To disregard these meant not only to be false to the sacred com- 
pact of the States, but it also meant Centralism, the very oppo- 
site of the unique Republican form of Government in America. 

It is now the month of November, 1800. The efforts of the 
Republican party have culminated in the election of Lincoln and 
Hamlin, pledged to carry out the principles of their party plat- 
form. This of itself is most serious cause for alarm, for it means 
revolution. But it also includes another most serious fact, viz ; 
That a large per cent of the Northern people have been induced 
to violate the Constitution, the one solemn compact of the States. 
Nor is even this all : They are now publishing to the world, ignor- 
ant of the nature of the compact among the States, that the com- 
plaints of the South are false, unjust, rebellious and treasonable. 
In Chapter 8, under the caption of "Ignorance As To the Constitu- 
tion, An Encouragement To Violate Its Terms," we have shown 
that one John Motley made in a letter to the London Times, in 
1860, among other false statements, the following: 

"The Constitution was not drawn by the States ; 

"It was not promulgated in the name of the States; 

"It was not ratified by the States ; 

"The States never acceded to it; 

"And possess no power to secede from it." 

These are but specimens of the perversions of facts published 
throughout Europe and both Americas. Was Motley rebuked for 
this outrage upon the truth of history? He was, instead, as we 
have seen, rewarded with an appointment to the very honorable 
position of Minister to the Court of St. James. "The fool of the 
great," in former times, wore Motley clothes. Hence Lear, in 
Shakespear, says : 

"A worthy fool ; motley's your only wear." 

Motley was the color of the acts of the Lincoln Administration 
at the Court of St. James. It was the only color that distin- 
guished the acts of the Lincoln Cabinet. It was the color of the 
acts that inaugurated the war. It was the color that distinguish- 
ed the acts of the entire conduct of that war. And when it had 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 189 

finally terminated, and the Government had looked upon the tre- 
mendous slaughter and destruction the war had wrought, all 
the testimony in its defense was of the same Motley color. This 
we shall show in a future chapter, on "The Trial of Jefferson 
Davis" — a trial of more than three years' duration, and yet a 
trial that never did take place. Will it be strange if this admin- 
istration shall finally be known as "The Motley Administration?" 
Suppose the Union arms had failed of success as they came near 
doing in the close of the year 1862, saved only by the border 
States being completely in subjection to the Administration, 
what estimate would the world have today of Abraham Lincoln? 
Success, however achieved, has much to do in exalting charac- 
ter. 

Such is the character of the facts that marked the adminis- 
tration of Lincoln and his Cabinet. To the South they meant 
the absorption of the entire Federal power; and, in the end, ab- 
solutism. The Supreme Court had been placed beneath the heels 
of a political party holding in its eager, and yet untried hand 
the reins of the'Government. Why might not this political par- 
ty also finally lord it over the Legislative Department of the Gov- 
ernment ? 

This short retrospect brings us a second time face to face 
with the perils of the "Irrespressible Conflict." Congress is 
now in session. The Crittendon resolutions, proposing amend- 
ments to the Constitution" as a basis for an adjustment of the 
difficulties," had been voted down by the Senate. Mr. Powell's 
resolutions proposing that "the grievances between the slave- 
holding and the non-slave holding States be referred to a special 
committee of thirteen members, instructed to inquire into the 
present condition of the country," was passed on the 18th of De- 
cember, 1860. Two days later that committee was appointed, 
consisting of five Southerners, three Northern Democrats and 
five Republicans. 

It was assumed that any measure agreed upon by such a repre- 
sentative committee would be approved by the Senate and rati- 
fied by the House. The committee, therefore, decided "that a 
majority of each of its three divisions should be required to ac- 



190 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

cept any terms that would secure the honor of the Southern 
States and guarantee their future safety." Mark the words : 
"that would secure the honor of the Southern States and guar- 
antee their future safety." Then tell us if the South was not 
assailed. Then tell us further, if these words do not imply 
that all the South demanded was the protection of her "honor" 
as a section, and a "guarantee" of her "future safety?" Tell 
us more still : do these words attach any blame to the South ^ If 
not, by what right could the South be accused of rebellion? 

Read next the words that fell from the lips of fact as the 
acts of the three devisions of that representative committee pass 
in review. The Southern members "declared their readiness to 
accept any terms that would secure the honor of the Southern 
States and guarantee their future safety." Did either justice 
or the Constitution demand that they accept less? "With these 
the Northern Democrats generally co-operated." But the Repub- 
lican Senators rejected every proposition that looked toward con- 
ciliation. "For ten days this representative committee labored 
in vain, all because of the five refractory Republicans. This in- 
flamatory fact was published to the world. Whatever may have 
been its influence upon the North it is known to have deepened 
the conviction of the South that she was destined to feel the iron 
hand of the coming administration. The testimony of this fact 
will be in evidence in behalf of the honor and the integrity of the 
South when passion and injustice shall have ceased to testify and 
when the five refractory Republicans shall have received merited 
condemnation. 

On the 111 St day of December, ISfiO, the last day of that most 
memorable and most eventful year — that historic committee of 
thirteen made its report, viz: "Its inability to attain any satis- 
factory conclusion." It was the saddest report ever made to an 
American Congress; it was the prophecy of the greatest war- 
storm that ever swept this Continent. We ask again, on whose 
shoulders should the blame fall? The tongue that says, "on the 
South" is so false that it ought to cleave to the roof of its mouth. 
Who can say it should not fall on the Republican Party, for 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 191 

these five Republicans only spoke and voted as they had been 
instructed? 

Mr. Seward, afterwards Secretary of State in Lincoln's Cabi- 
net, was a member of that Committee. More than two years ago 
he had said of Abolitionism, "It has driven you back in Cali- 
fornia and in Kansas; it will invade your soil." To him Doug- 
las turned, while speaking, and looking squarely in his face de- 
manded of him a "declaration of policy." Seward's motley lips 
were closed. Doubtless earlier these same silent lips were open, 
and had let fall a sentence that was being repeated with all its 
dark forebodings throughout the length and breadth of the 
South, "viz : "It will invade your soil." This man of threats, 
so silent under the search-light of Douglas, was very close to 
Lincoln — perhaps his most trusted adviser. Indeed it was after- 
ward said of him, "he was the power behind the throne." Was 
ever policy more clearly marked out two years in advance? 

In the House of Representatives another committee was ap- 
pointed. It was also truly representative as it consisted of one 
member from each State in the Union, and therefore numbered 
33 members. This committee had been charged with a duty very 
similar to that of the Senate's Commiittee of thirteen. They 
submitted to the House three reports — one majority and two 
minority. The majority report was finally adopted ; but even 
this report did not provide any solution of the vital point at is- 
sue — the Territorial question, a question raised and pressed to the 
front by the Republican Party. 

Thus when the last sun of the eventful year, 1860, sank be- 
low the western hills, it went down behind a dark and threaten- 
ing cloud, without a silver lining of hope. Every effort of Con- 
gress to restore amity had failed — all due to the obstinancy of the 
advocates of the Platform Constitution. Just eleven days ago 
South Carolina had unanimously revoked her delegated powers. 
Seven or eight other States were anxiously waiting the action 
of Congress in the hope that a similar act by them hight be avert- 
ed. All overtures for conciliation had no\v failed. There was 
but one other remedy left, the heretofore unquestionable right of 
a sovereign State to secede from what she had acceded to. The 



192 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

severing of her connection from the Bond of the States, so long" 
rendered dear by sacred associations, was the sad aUernative 
that was forced upon each State of the South. Driven to it by 
a stubborn and relentless radical majority, unwilling to yield any- 
thing in the spirit of peace and amity these States of the South 
called conventions and calmly and dispassionately discussed the- 
wisdom of the policy of secession as opposed to that of surren- 
dering their Constitutional rights. 

When the future historian shall read these facts what will be- 
his conclusion? Will he pronounce encomiums upon the Repub- 
lican Party ? Can he do it ? Will he not rather heap panegyrics 
on the South for her fidelity to the common Constitution and her 
manifest anxiety to preserve untarnished that instrum'ent, so dear 
to her heart? Will he censure the South for being so human 
as to resist encroachments upon her rights? As well ask the 
historian of today if he censures the American Colonies for re- 
sisting the encroachments of England upon their sacred rights. 
M'hat American today does not boast of the Declaration of In- 
dependence ; and is not proud of the heroic resistance made by 
our fathers against the tyranny of Great Britain? In the pride 
and boast of the American citizens of today, as to the struggles 
of our fathers you will read the commendations heaped upon the 
South by all coming generations. 

It is now the 19th day of January, 1861. Six States of the 
South, in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, have 
withdrawn from the Union. The nullification of the Supreme 
Court's decision by the party that has triumphed in the presiden- 
tial election ; the nullification of the fugitive slave law by four- 
teen Northern States ; the murderous intent of the John Brown 
Raid, and such threats as "it will invade your soil" made by a 
member of the successful party, second in rank to Mr. Lin- 
coln only, and other similar accusations, infinite in number, con- 
vinced these six States that the Constitution would no longer af- 
ford them protection; and that the time to act was now before 
their hands and feet were tied by a hostile Federal administra- 
tion. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 193 

On this day, the 19th of January, 1861, the Legislature of an- 
other Southern State was in session. It was that of the Old 
Dominion. Its members were sure there was yet enough patrio- 
tism in the States, North and South, to save the Union. Not 
as yet did they think even the seceding States were irreconcilia- 
ble. On that memorable day they "adopted a series of resolu- 
tions, calling a conference of all the States." 

The first of these resolutions reads as follows : "That on be- 
half of the Commonwealth of Virginia an invitation is hereby ex- 
tended to all such States, whether slave-holding or non-slave- 
holding, as are willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest ef- 
fort to adjust the present unhappy controversies in the spirit of the 
Constitution as originally formed, and consistently with its 
principles, so as to afford to the people of the slave-holding States 
adequate guarantees for the security of their rights, to appoint 
commissioners to meet on the 4th of February next, in the city 
of Washington, similar commissioners appointed by Virginia, to 
consider, and if practicable, agree upon some suitable adjust- 
ment." Note that every effort at conciliation was made by the 
South. All were "in the spirit of the Constitution as originally 
formed and consistently with its principles." This was just what 
the dominant party did not want, as we shall see. 

On the 4th day of February 1861, in compliance with the Vir- 
ginia resolutions known in history as the "Peace Congress," as- 
sembled in the Willard Hall, Washington, D. C. It was at once 
organized. Its venerable President was the Hon. John Tyler, 
the 10th President of the United States, and son of a distinguished 
patriot in the American Revolution. Fourteen Northern Statets 
and seven Southern States, counting Kansas, not yet a State, 
were present by duly accredited representatives. 

It was an able and dignified body, composed of the best ma- 
terial of the States they represented. Commenting on its respec- 
ability Ex-President Tyler said : "In the whole course of a pub- 
lic life, much longer than usually falls to the lot of man, I have 
been associated with many bodies of my fellow citizens, convened 
for legislative and other purposes, but I here say that it has never 
been my good fortune to meet an association of more intelligent. 



194 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

thouglitful or patriotic men than that over which I have been 
called to preside." 

The action of this patriotic Peace Congress was officiallv and 
promptly certified to the National Congress, requesting that their 
proposed amendments to the Constitution be submitted to the 
States for their ratification in due form. These amendments were 
similar to those of the Crittenden resolutions, then pending before 
Congress, but less favorable to the South. Again we ask that 
the Spirit of the South be seen. It vras that of conciliation. En- 
titled to all the Supreme Court had decided was hers, she was 
v.alling to accept amendments even less favorable — those proposed 
by the Peace Congress, 

The very next day after the Peace Congress had adjourned their 
proposed amendments came before the Senate. They were- prompt- 
ly rejected by a vote of 28 to 7. The House actually refused to 
suspend the rules to hear them read. Pause here in the pres- 
ence of these facts and listen to their testimony as to who were 
the traiters in 1861. 

The Republican Party was on the throne of power by virtue 
of less than two-fifths of the popular vote. Flushed with victory 
they were acrimoniously persistent in continuing to violate the 
Constitution. Rebels against the Government under the Consti- 
tution, they were clothed with all the power of that Government, 
This power carried with it the official dignity of the Great Re- 
public, peerless among governments. This dignity gave credence 
and influence correspondingly great to all its utterances. The 
great masses of foreign governments are presumed to know no 
more about our Government than we know about theirs. Plence 
official proclamations by this Government were received with im- 
plicit faith by the masses of the North and bv the masses of the 
nations of the world. The time came when "the 30 day's" con- 
test gave place to the alarming realities of a long and vigorous 
and doubtful struggle. It was then ascertained that a Motley 
was needed, not only at the Court of St. James, but also at every 
important Court in the world, including that at Washington. 
In the light of the facts we have given, read this resolution passed 
bv the House December 17, 1863. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 195 

"Resolved that our country and the very existence of the best 
Government ever instituted by man, are imperiled by the most 
causeless and wicked rebellion that the world has ever seen, and 
believing, as we do, that the only hope of saving this country 
and preserving this Government is by the power of the sword, 
we are for the most vigorous prosecution of the war until the 
Constitution and the laws shall be enforced in all parts of the 
United States ; and to that end we oppose an}- armistice, or in- 
tervention, or mediation, or proposition for peace from any quar- 
ter so long as there be found a rebel in arms against the Govern- 
ment, and we ignore all party lines and issues, and recognize but 
two parties — patriots and traitors." This resolution was adopted 
by a vote of 94 to G5. 

Elected on a party platform pronounced to be unconstitutional 
by the Supreme Court, by Lincoln in his Cooper Institute Speech, 
by Francis Newton Thorpe in "The Civil War from a Northern 
Standpoint," by Judge Chase in his address to the Peace Con- 
gress, by the most eminent statesmen of all parties, and by the 
truly enlightened of all sections of our common country, the 
dominant party leaders created the very conditions that "imper- 
iled the very existence of the best Government ever instituted by 
man," and then charged the crime to the South. Rejecting all 
conciliatory propositions within the terms of the Constitution, 
they demanded that their party platform be accepted in lieu of 
that instrument. When the South persistently refused their plat- 
form, and as persistently demanded the Constitution, and the Con- 
stitution only, as her inherited right, and as a precious and sacred 
legacy from the Fathers, she was denounced as traitors and charg- 
ed with "the most causeless and wicked rebellion the world has 
ever seen." The G5 members who voted against this resolution 
did not believe this charge. The 94 who voted for it did not 
believe it. No man familiar with the facts believes it today. The 
fact is, at this time, the flag of the South was unfurled over vic- 
torious legions. Consequently the Government was in dread of 
an "armistice, or intervention, or mediation, or proposition for 
peace from any (some) quarter." Misrepresentation was their 



196 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

stock in trade at home and abroad ; and it was an inexhaustible 
stock. The perversions of John L. Motley, published in the Lon- 
don Times, made him Mi^iister of St. James's Court. The per- 
versions of the 94 congressmen, in the solemn form of a resolution, 
made them ministers at all the Courts of the world. The 
so-called patriots of the Sixties are the rebels of the future. All 
the facts of histor}' declare this ; and facts are impartial. To 
know the truth we have only to know what the facts say. Their 
testimony is as clear as the sunlight; and as true as truth itself. 
These declare the South's unselfish devotion to the Constitution ; 
that the South, at no time in all the history of the Republic, de- 
manded more than the Constitution granted her; and that the 
North did. They declare that it was the constant and persistent 
aggressions of the North, threatening to invade the South and 
disturb her peace that finally drove her from the Union. 

Alexander H. Stephens in commenting on this resolution, in 
connection with the scornful rejection of the amendments to the 
Constitution proposed by the Peace Congress, says, in "The War 
Between the States :" Was there ever an instance in the history 
of the world, or — no?" Pausing, he adds: "I will withhold the 
word I was about to utter. But let me ask if the Federal Arms 
had been directed against those who resisted the enforcement of 
the Constitution and the laws of the United States, with the real 
purpose of preserving 'the best government ever instituted by 
man,' was there a single one of them who voted for this resolu- 
tion, who would not justly have been the first subjects of slaugh- 
ter? These are the men who still talk of 'loyal States!' Who 
still have much to say about 'loyal men !' Was ever noble word, 
when properly applied, so prostrated, as this is in its present use 
by this class of boasting patriots?" 

"The Southern States were ever loyal and true to the Consti- 
tution. This I maintain as a great truth of history. The only 
true loyalty in this country is fidelity to the Constitution ! The 
only disloyal, or those avowedly untrue to the Constitution, were 
those who instigated, inaugurated, and waged this most unright- 
eous war against their Confederate neighbors." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 197 

There was present in the Peace Congress, as a delegate from 
Ohio, Sahiion Leonidas Chase. He was there not in the interest 
of concih'ation, but to oppose it, not secretly but openly. In all 
candor he declared the party elected to power would never con- 
sent to abide by the Constitution as to the right of citizens of the 
Southern States to take their slaves into the Common Territor- 
ies ; or to the return of the fugitive slaves. He was both an ex- 
Governor and an ex-Senator, and hence a man of distinction and 
ability. He said in that Congress, on tlie 6th of February, 1861. 

"I believe, and the belief amounts to absolute conviction, that 
the election (of Lincoln) must be regarded as a triumph of the 
principles cherished in the hearts of the people of the free States. 
These principles, it is true, v/ere originally asserted by a small 
party only. But after years of discussion they have, by theit 
own value, their own intrinsic soundness, obtained a deliberate 
and unalterable sanction of the people's judgment. 

"Chief among these principles is the Restriction of Slavery with- 
in State limits ; not war upon slavery within these limits but 
fixed opposition to its extension beyond them. Mr. Lincoln was 
the candidate of the people opposed to the extension of slavery. 
We have elected him. After many years of earnest advocacy, 
and of severe trial we have achieved the triumph of that princi- 
ple. By a fair and unquestionable majority we have secured that 
triumph. Do you think we, who represent this majority, will 
throw it away? I must speak to you plainly, gentlemen of the 
South. It is not in my heart to deceive you .... I must tell you 
further that under no inducements whatever will we consent to 
surrender a principle which we believe to be sound, and so im- 
portant as that of restricting slavery within State limits." 

These words were deliberately uttered in defiance of the de- 
cision of the Supreme Court that the people of the Southern States 
could go into the Common Territories with their slaves. Judge 
Chase v^^as therefore clearly unconstitutional and knowingly so. 
In his deliberate manner he declares his party, the party that 
nominated and elected Mr. Lincoln, will not regard this decision 
of the Supreme Court. What shall we call this ? May not even 
a Confederate veteran call such plain speech by its true name? 



]9S RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Upon what ground does he justify this revolt against the plain 
terms of the Constitution? His own words tell in language that 
does not equivocate. His words are clear and to the point. They 
were meant to be understood. The ground is this : "By a fair 
and unquestionable majority we have secured that triumph," — 
that is elected — "have elected a candidate opposed to the exten- 
sion of slaver^'." That "fair and unquestionable majority" was 
l,8nr),Sr)3 votes for Lincoln against 3,010,501 votes against him; 
that is thirty-eight and three-tenths per cent, for him, and sixty- 
one and seven-tenths per cent, against him. It is therefore 
certain that a majority of the popular vote was not for him. It 
is also certain that the minority popular vote was ex- 
clusively sectional, according to Judge Chase's own words : "The 
election must be regarded as the triumph of the principles cher- 
ished in the hearts of the people of ihe free States." But even if 
Lincoln had received a majority of the popular votes of both sec- 
tions it would not, have changed the Constitution, because this 
instrument recognizes no such method of change. 

Nor did Lincoln receive three-fourths of the electoral votes, 
to say nothing of the votes of three-fourths of the States. But 
had three-fourths of the 33 States voted for him h,is election 
would not have amended the Constitution, because, in the first 
place, his party did not propose their platform as an amendment 
to the Constitution to be voted on in that election ; and, in the 
second place, if they had proposed it as an amendment to be 
voted on in that election, their proposition would have been null 
and void, because in opposition to the expressed provisions of the 
Constitution. Hence Judge Chase was honest enough to say — 
his party would disregard the Constitution as to the right of the 
Southern people's taking their slaves into the common territories. 
This is not only a clear violation of the Constitution ; it is also 
a clear violation of that "higher law" to which, in their extrem- 
ity thev appealed. "Do unto others as you would have them do 
unto you." 

Ju.dge, Chase makes another confession of his party having vio- 
lated the Constitution. It is in these words: "Aside from the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH iy«j 

Territorial question — the question of Slavery outside the Slave 
States — I knov/ of but one serious difficulty. I refer to the ques- 
tion concerning fugitives from service. The clause in the Con- 
stitution concerning this class of persons is regarded by almost 
all men, North and South, as a stipulation for the surrender to 
their masters of slaves escaping into free States. The people of 
the free States, however, who believe that slavery is wrong can 
not, and will not aid in the reclamatoin and the stipulation becomes 
therefore a dead letter. . . .Why not then avoid all difficulties on 
all sides and show respectively good faith and good-will by pro- 
viding and accepting compensation where masters reclaim escap- 
ing servants and prove their right of reclamation under the Con- 
stitution? Instead of a judgment for rendition, let there be a 
judgment for compensation, determined by the true value of the 
services, and let the same judgment for compensation be deter- 
mined by the true value of the services, and let the same judg- 
ment assure freedom to the fugitive. The cost to the National 
Treasury would be as nothing in comparison with the evils of dis- 
cord and strife. All parties would be gainers." 

The first trouble about this fascinating proposition is, it was 
never proposed by the party in power as an amendment to the 
Constitution. To become effective it was absolutely necessary that 
it be made an amendment to the Constitution. It is certain the 
States were never asked to vote upon such an amendment. It 
is believed that the Southern States would have voted for it. 

Mr. Stephens suggests another difficulty as to the proposition, 
viz : "Whatever may be thought of this as a proposed compro- 
mise to induce the parties to remain in the Union, no one can 
doubt its unequivocal declaration that the non-slaveholding States 
would comply with their acknowledged obligations under the Con- 
stitution. It was a confession of one high in authority that 
that part of the Constitution was 'a dead letter,' and, of course 
if the Southern States would not agree to his offer, they were 
absolved from all further obligation to the compact. This is 
conclusive upon well settled principles of public law. 

"The declaration that the Northern States would not comply 
with their Constitutional obligations, bear in mind, was made by 



200 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, under Lincoln. He spoke for 
the President and his party" — the party that charged the South 
with "the most causeless and wicked rebellion that the world has 
ever seen ;" and all because the South was true to the Constitu- 
tion and rejected their substitution of a Party Platform for the 
Constitution. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SOVEREIGNTY AND SECESSION. 

It is universally admitted that unless the States were mere 
Provinces they were Sovereigns. All admit they were not Prov- 
inces. Therefore they were Sovereigns. No one denies the right 
of a Sovereign State to both accede and to secede. Sovereigntv 
then involves the right of secession. 

This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when, on the 12th day of 
January, 1848, as reported in the Congressional- Globe, he said in 
the House of Representatives : 

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, 
have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, 
and to form a new one that suits them better. This is a most 
valuable right, a sacred right which we hope and believe is to 
liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which 
the whole of any existing government may choose to exercise it. 
Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize, and make 
their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit." 

Strong, clear and broad expressions are these. Not a signer 
of the Declaration of Independence, not a signer of the Philadel- 
phia Constitution, not a Northerner who lived under that Consti- 
tution during its first four decades, not a Southerner who lived 
under its rule for the first seven decades could advocate secession 
in broader, stronger, clearer, more impressive terms than did Ab- 
raham Lincoln. If secession was rebeUion never lived a greater 
rebel than Lincoln. 

That we may bring out the views of Lincoln into their true 
light let us question him, and have him give answer in his own 
words. 

Question: Mr. Lincoln, do you mean to say that people of 
every clime and every condition of life have the right to rise up 
and shake off the existing government? 

Answer: I mean "any people anywhere." "Any people" in- 
cludes every condition of life; and "everywhere" includes every 
clime. 



202 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Question : You do not mean to say you include the Southern 
States of this American Union ? 

Answer : "Any people anwhere"' includes all States of every 
description and of every locality. It therefore includes the States 
in the Southern Section of this Republic. 

Ouesiton : Mr. Lincoln, what belongs to any people anywhere? 

Answer : "The right to rise up and shake off the existing gov- 
ernment and to form a new one that suits them better." 

Question : Mr. Lincoln, what is your opinion of their political 
right ? 

Answer: "This is a most valuable and sacred right, and a 
right we hope and believe is to liberate the world." 

Question: i\Ir. Lincoln, does this most valuable, this most sa- 
cred right" apply to a people as a whole only, or is it also appli- 
cable to a portion of the whole? 

Answer : "Any portion of such people that can may revolu- 
tionize, and make their own so much of the territory as they in- 
habit." 

These are sweeping declarations. They were made by a man 
who just 12 years, one month and 15 days later stood before a 
New York audience in the Cooper Institute, and denied to the 
Southern States this "most valuable and mcst sacred right." Yet 
these States were included in "any people anywhere," and besides 
they were included in a very special sense in that they had re- 
served this right in becoming members of the Union. Not only 
did he deny them this right in the sixties but he waged war 
agaist them for exercising it. What verdict do these facts ren- 
der? The calm judgment of the impassioned future must decide. 
Who doubts what that decision will be? 

All must admit that a great change took place in Abraham 
Lincoln between 18-18 and ISGO. How shall we account for it? 
Will it be attributed to the hope of political preferment? In 
1848 he was just a plain, awkward, unassuming, unheralded mem- 
ber of Congress, low down in the marsh of politics. In 18fi0 he 
had a vision of the Presidency : he had been lifted to a high moun- 
tain top, and shown all the glory of the head of the great Ameri- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 203 

can Republic. He was told "all these will I give you if you will 
fall down and worship me." One man only is known to have re- 
sisted such a temptation, and he was the Immaculate. Did Lin- 
coln fall down and worship? At all events was he not a very 
different man in 18G0, from what he was in 1S48? Therefore we 
"appeal from Phillip drunk to Phillip sober;" and shall assume 
that "honest Abe" was himself in 1848, and spoke then his true 
convictions. Hence, we class the Lincoln of 1848, not the poli- 
tician of 1860, among- the most liberal of secessionists, — the rebel 
of rebels if secession be rebellion. 

We next introduce Judge Iredell of the United States Supreme 
Court, 1793—2 Dallas 419— who says: 

"Every State in the Union in every instance, where its sov- 
ereignty has not been delegated to the United States, is consid- 
ered to be as completely sovereign as the United States are with 
respect to the powers surrendered; each State in the Union is 
sovereign as to the powers reserved. It must necessarily be so 
because the United States have no claim to any authority but such 
as the States have surrendered to them." No man can deny that 
the sovereignty of the United States was limited to powers dele- 
gated to it by the States. No man can deny that the States were 
sovereign over their reserved rights. To confuse the reader it has 
been asserted that sovereignty cannot be divided. Yet its pozucr 
can, and, in this way only, did the United States receive such sov- 
ereignty as it has. 

This decision was rendered in the case of Alexander Chisolm 
of South Carolina against the State of Georgia, in the Supreme 
Court of the United States. The real question involved was, 
"Could Sovereign States be Sued?" 

As conclusive as appears this decision by Judge Iredell there 
were two other contrary decisions rendered at the same time by 
Judges of the same Court. The sequel will show that this was 
a fortunate occurrence. Associate Justice Wilson in a lengthy 
argument claimed that sovereignty was vested in the United 
States ; and that the Supreme Court' had jurisdiction over every 
State in the Union. In this decision he was sustained by Chief 
Justice Jay. 



204 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

This decision was handed down on the 7th day of February 
1793. It came Hke a thunderbolt from a clear sky. It was so 
foreign to the accepted character of the Government that it creat- 
ed great alarm throughout both sections of the Union. The very 
next day, the 9th of February, 1793, Representative Sedgwick of 
Massachusetts introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution 
so that a Sovereign State could not be sued. The resolution was 
passed, and submitted to the States for their adoption or rejec- 
tion. It was adopted by the States and became the Eleventh 
Amendment to the Constitution. It reads as follows : "The 
judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to ex- 
tend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted 
against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or 
by citizens or subjects of any foreign State." Note that in this 
amendment the Congress of 1793, during Washington's Admin- 
istration, ranked a State Government with a foreign Govern- 
ment, calling each a State ; that is. Congress regarded each State 
of the Union as much a sovereign State as any foreign State 
is. 

Imagine Mr. Sedgwick of Massachusetts rising in his place 
in the House of Representatives and addressing the Speaker as 
follows : 

"Mr. Speaker. But yesterday a majority decision of a most 
alarming nature was handed down by the Supreme Court. Sir. 
I rise to protest in the name of Massachusetts against this deci- 
sion. It gives a new and wrong construction of the character 
of this Government. It reduces free and independent sovereign- 
ties to the rank of mere provinces. It contradicts the Declara- 
tion of Independence, which solemnly declares, "That these united 
Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent 
States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
Crown, and that all political connection between them and the 
State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved." Sir, 
the Declaration of Independence calls these Colonies States in 
the same breath in which it calls Great Britain a State. Sir, 
who can doubt the meaning of one of these American States, 
forming this great American Union, when it is known that each 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 205 

js a State in the same sense in which Great Britain is? But that 
there may be no doubt at all as to the true meaning of one of 
these States, the Declaration of Independence adds : "And as 
free and independent States they have full power to levy war, 
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and do all 
other acts and things which Independent States may have right 
to do." 

"Nor can the United States lawfully rob them of their rights 
as sovereign States until the Tenth Amendment to the Consti- 
tution is repealed. That Amendment is in these words : 'The 
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re- 
spectively, or to the people.' Sir, have these States ever dele- 
gatd to the Federal Government their independence, their Sov- 
ereignty? If so, in what article, what section, what clause is 
it to be found? 

"Sir, there is no fact in history better established than that 
these thirteen States declared themselves by their "Declaration 
of Independence," to be as many separate, free and independent 
States or Nations. It is equally well established that they never 
did surrender their independence, their Statehood, their Nation- 
ality. 

"Sir, there is another fact equally as well established, viz: 
That these States created the Federal Government for their own 
convenience ; and that there is no proposition more absurd than 
that the creature is above the creator. All the millions of suns 
with all their quintillions of planets are the creations of God. They 
are inconceivably great, but can it be said that even they are 
greater than their Creator, God? Before the Federal Govern- 
ment can outrank the States the creature must outrank its Crea- 
tor. 

"Sir, the majority decision handed down yesterday, by the Su- 
preme Court not only contradicts the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, but the Constitution as well. Nevertheless I am aware 
that this decision is binding on all the States of this Union till it 
is revoked in due form, or just as the Constitution prescribes. I, 
therefore, offer to the House this resolution as an amendment 



206 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of the Constitution, when appro^'ed by three-fourths of the States 
of this Union." 

This resohition was adopted in the House by more than the 
required majority of two-thirds : and was then ratified by the 
States. It thus became the Eleventh Amendment to the Con- 
stitution. This amendment was designed to silence forever all 
doubts as to the sovereignty of the States. Its adoption by the 
States v\^as a firm and deliberate declaration of the States that 
they were free, idependent and sovereign. Who knew better 
than the States themselves ? Was their adoption of this amend- 
ment a mere farce? 

What a contrast have we here in the methods of the opponents 
of a Supreme Court decision in 1793, and the methods of the 
of the opponents of this Court's decision in 1860? The former 
appealed to the Constitution, submitted on amendment to the 
States for their ratification, and thus reversed the Court's de- 
cision. The latter disregarded the Constitution and appealed 
to a strictly sectional political party. The former was clearly 
Constitutional; the latter was clearly unconstitutional, and 
therefore, revolutionary. It was this revolutionary spirit that 
invited opposition on the part of the Southern States. Did not 
these States have the right to oppose revolution? If they had 
this right were they responsible for that most terrible of wars? 

We take pleasure in presenting the views of. President Jack- 
son, and the more so because he has been held up to the world 
as a centralist. In his first inaugural address he refers to the 
Constitution as a "Federal Constitution" — that is a league or con- 
tract between the States. In this same inaugural he says, "in 
such measures as I may be called on to pursue, in regard to the 
rights of the separate States, I hope to be animated by a proper 
respect for these sovereign members of our Union ; taking care not 
to confound the powers they have reserved to themselves with 
those they have granted to the Confederacy." (Statesmen 
Manuel \'ol. 2, p. 695). Can it be affirmed in plainer terms 
that the Union is a Confederacy and that the Constitution is a 
compact ? 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 207 

For eight years he was President, and unless his position on 
the NnHihcation Ordinance of South Carolina be a single ex- 
ception, the same sentiment pervades every message. In his 
farewell address are tliese unmistakable words, showing that he 
ended his administration possessing the same sentiments with 
which he began it, as to the true character of this Government, 
viz. : "It is well known that there have been those always among 
us who wish to enlarge the powers of the General Government, 
and experience would seem to indicate that there is a tendency 
on the part of this Government to overstep the boundaries mark- 
ed out for it by the Constitution. Its legitimate authority is 
abundantly sufficient for all tlie purposes for which it was creat- 
ed ; and its powers being expressly enumerated there can be no 
justification for claiming anything beyond them. Every attempt 
to exercise power beyond these limits should be promptly and 
firmly opposed. For one evil example will lead to other meas- 
ures still more mischievous; and if the principle of constructive 
pov;ers, or supposed advantages, or temporary circumstances, 
shall ever be permitted to justify the assumption of a power not 
given by the Constitution, the General Government will, before 
long, absorb all the powers of Legislation, and you will have, in 
effect, but one consolidated Government. From the extent of 
our country, its diversified interests, different pursuits, and differ- 
ent habits, it is too obvious for argument, that a single consoli- 
dated Government would be wholly inadequate to watch over 
and protect its interests ; and every friend of our free institu- 
tions should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in 
full vigor, the rights of the Sovereignty of the States and to con- 
fine the action of the General Government strictly to the sphere 
of its appropriate duties." (Statemen's Manuel, Vol. 2, p. 952). 

Alexander H. Stephens in comnienting on this closing para- 
graph in Jackson's farewell address says : "How wise, patrio- 
tic, and even prophetic, were these admonitions of the Hero of 
New Orleans and the Sage of the Hermitage ? He was, indeed, 
both hero and sage ! In him v/as presented the rare combina- 
tion of both military and civic attainments of a very high order. 
Highest in eminence above all others of this class in the annals 



208 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of the world stands Washington ! Jackson approached as near 
this great unapproachable model of the general and statesman 
combined, as perhaps any one will or can. He left the impress 
of his ideas deeply fixed upon the times in which he lived. And 
no more important admonition did he ever give his countrymen 
than that in the closing part of the extract from his Farewell 
Address I have just read. This, with all the solemnity of dying 
declarations, may be received as the strongest evidence of his 
opinions that ours is a Confederacy of Sovereign States, and that 
our liberties, as well as the preservation of the Union, which 
was so dear to him, depend upon their preservation as such ! 
Kis last parting words to his countrymen were to prepare to main- 
tain unimpaired and in full vigor, the sovereignty of the States." 
In as much as many totally misunderstand Nullification by 
South Carolina we shall give here a brief statement of the ques- 
tion involved. South Carolina and other States held that "the 
power to levy duties on imports, not with a view to revenue, but 
to aid and protect particular classes, was not delegated to Con- 
gress and hence its exercise was unconstitutional. To test the 
matter in the Civil Courts, South Carolina, in November 1832, 
passed her Nullification Ordinance. This was her method of 
deciding the Constitutionality of the Act of Congress. Some 
thought secession the better method, but South Carolina loved the 
Union and preferred to remain in the Union, and abide the de- 
cision of the Supreme Court. 

On the first of February 1833, Senator Wilkins introduced a 
bill to counteract the Nullification Ordinance of South Carolina. 
This bill is known in history as the Force Bill, because it clothed 
the President with the power to execute its provisions, author- 
izing him to use all the land and naval forces. This Force Bill 
created the greatest excitement throughout the country. This 
was followed by a great debate in v>^hich principles were discuss- 
ed. Mr. Wilkins and his supporters did not intend that the 
Supreme Court should ever decide the question. They charged 
that South Carolina intended "violent resistance to the United 
States." This charge brought Calhoun to his feet, who said: 
"He could not sit silent and permit such erroneous construction 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 209 

to go forth ; that South Carolina had never contemplated violent 
resistance to the laws of the United States." 

Mr. Wilkins replied: "He understood the Senator (Mr. Cal- 
houn) the other day as acknowledging that there was military 
array in South Carolnia, but contending that it followed, and 
did not precede the array of force by the United States." 

"Mr. Calhoun said he admitted there was military prepara- 
tion, not array." 

"Mr. Wilkins. If we examine the measures taken by the Ad- 
ministration, in reference to the present crisis, it would be found 
that they were not at all of that military character to justify 
the measures of South Carolina, which it was alleged had fol- 
lowed them." 

"Mr. Calhoun said that South Carolina was undoubtedly pre- 
paring to resist force by force. Bvit let the United States with- 
draw her forces from its borders, and lay this bill upon the table 
and her preparations would cease." 

"Mr. Wilkins resumed, that is, Sir, if we do not oppose any 
of her movements all will be right. If we fold our arms and 
exhibit a perfect indifference whether the laws of the Union are 
obeyed or not, all will be quiet ! 

"Mr. Calhoun. Who relies upon force in this controversy? 
I have insisted upon it that South Caroina relied altogether 
upon civil process, and that if the General Government resorts 
to force then only will South Carolina rely upon her force. If 
force be introduced by either party upon that party will fall the 
responsibility." (Nile's Register, Vol. 3, Supp. p. 33). 

This is in full accord with the ordinance of South Carolina, 
declaring, "We will not submit to invasion or any act of 
Congress otherwise than through the Civil tribunals of the 
Courts." 

Judge Bibb of Kentucky said: 

"It seemed to him a false issue was presented. The question 
of war against South Carolina is presented as the only alterna- 
tive. The issue was false. The first question is between jus- 
tice and injustice. Shall we do justice to the States who have 
united with South Carolina in complaint and remonstrance 



210 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ag-ainst the injustice and oppression of the tariff? Shall we can- 
cel the obligations of justice to five other States, because of the 
impetuosity and impatience of South Carolina under wrong and 
oppression? The question ought not to be whether we have 
the physical power to crush South Carolina, but whether it is 
not our duty to heal her discontents, to conciliate a member of 
the Union, to give peace and happiness to the adjoining States 
which have made common cause with South Carolina so far as 
complaint and remonstrance go. Are we to rush into a war 
with South Carolina to compel her to remain in the Union? 
Shall we keep her in the Union by force of arms, for the pur- 
pose oT compelling her submission to the tariff laws of which 
she complains How shall we do this? By the naval and mil- 
itary force of the United States, combined with the militia? 
Where will the militia come from? Will Virginia, will North 
Carolina, will Georgia, Mississippi, or Alabama assist to enforce 
submission to the tariff laws, the justice and Constitutionality 
of which they have, by resolutions on your files, denied over and 
over again? Will these States assist to forge chains by which 
they themselves are to be bound? Is this to be expected in the 

ordinary course of chance and probability ? 

"My creed is that, by the Declaration of Independence, the 
States were declared to be free and independent States, thirteen 
in number, not one Nation — that the old Articles of Confedera- 
tion united them as distinct States, not as one people: — that the 
treaty of peace, of 1783, acknowledged their independence as 
States not as a single Nation ; that the Federal Constitution was 
framed by States, submitted to States, and adopted by the 
States, as distinct Nations or States, not as a single Nation or 
people. 

"By canvassing these conflicting opinions, we shall the better 
understand how far South CaroHna has transcended her reserv- 
ed powers as a Sovereign State — how far we can lawfully make 
war upon her — and whether we, or South Carolina, are likely 
to transcend the barriers provided in the Constitution of the 
United States. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 211 

"I do not, said Mr. Bibb, wish to be misunderstood. In these 
times of political excitement, whatever is spoken or reported, may 
be misrepresented. He wished it to be understood, that he did 
not approve of the doctrines of South Carolina, in their full ex- 
tent. But, if we make war upon her, to put down her princi- 
ples, we must be sure that these principles are bad and dan- 
gerous, 

"What are her principles? That she has a right to judge, in 
/he last resort, in all questions concerning her rights : or, to 
put it in still stronger language — if the Congress attempts to 
enforce the revenue laws, she will resume her independence and 
Sovereignty. He did not approve of this course on the part of 
South Carolina, under all the circumstances. Still, he would 
like to know when and where South Carolina surrendered the 
right to secede from the Union, in case of a dangerous invasion 
of her rights by the Federal Government. In the solemn decla- 
ration of principles with which some of the States accompanied 
the adoption of the Constitution, this right is declared to be in- 
alienable. There was too much truth in the axiom contained in 
many State Constitutions that 'a frequent recurrence to the first 
principles is necessary to the maintenance of liberty.' Here Mr. 
Bibb read a passage from the Declaration of Independence : 'We 
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain in- 
alienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness Now, if South Carolina has mistaken her 
injury and her remedy, shall we make war upon her, and put 
down the principles asserted by the Declaration of Independ- 
ence? The ratification, by several States, of the Constitution, 
adopted the same principles ; and they were accepted as forming 
a part of the Constitution. Mr. Bibb here referred to the dec- 
laration accompanying the ratification of the Constitution by the 
State of New York — that 'all power was derived from the peo- 
ple, and could be resumed by the people whenever it became nec- 
essary for their happiness.' They go on to say, 'under these im- 
pressions, and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be 
abridged or violated, and that the explanations aforesaid are 



212 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

consistent with the said Constitution ; and in confidence, that the 
amendments which shall have been proposed to the said Consti- 
tution, will receive an early and mature consideration, we, the 
said Delegates, in the name and in behalf of the people of the 
State of New York, do, by these presents, assent to, and ratify 
the said Constitution,' etc. 

"The reservation of the State of Rhode Island were of the 
same tenor ; ! and he went on to read her declaration .... Mr. 
Bibb next adverted to the Articles of the old Confederation. They 
declared the Union should be perpetual, and that no alteration 
should be made in the Articles, but by consent of Congress, and 
of the Legislatures of each State of the Union. Here the Com- 
pact was declared to be perpetual, and yet we undertook to ar- 
rest it without the consent of any State. The Constitution pro- 
vides that when nine States have ratified the Constitution, it 
shall go into operation. Why were the fundamental Articles of 
the old Confederation violated? How could nine States be sup- 
posed to combine, and throw the other four out of the Union? 
They claimed the right, under the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence, to alter, reform, and amend their form of Gov- 
ernment as much and as often as such change was necessary, 
in their opinion. The people have an unalienable, indefensible 
right to make a Government which shall be adequate to their 
ends. Upon this principle it was that the old Compact was de- 
stroyed, and a new one made. 

"We are now about to make war upon a State, which formed 
a part of the old Confederation, and became a party to the new 
Confederation, with an express reservtaion of powers not ex- 
pressly delegated by her 

"Mr. Bibb asked if it was possible that the people of the States, 
in adopting this Constitution, could have intended to surrender 
absolutely and forever the right which they had obtained by a 
Revolution. So well did they understand the difficulty of shak- 
ing off the powers which once enchained us, and so jealous were 
they of their newly acquired freedom, that they took care to say 
in the Constitution, that the powers not delegated by them, are 
reserved to themselves. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 213 

"It stood on record, that one of the Roman provinces rebelled 
against the Government, again and again. The leaders were 
subdued, and many of the Senators of this party, and many of 
the people were taken and killed. The conquered province sent 
ambassadors to Rome, and when these ambassadors appeared, 
the Consul asked of them 'what punishment did they deserve?' 
The answer of the ambassadors .was, 'such punishment as he de- 
serves who contends for liberty.' It was demanded of them by 
the Senate, 'whether if terms of peace were granted them, they 
would abide faithfully by them?' They replied emphatically, 
that 'if the terms were good and just, they would faithfully abide 
by them, and peace should be perpetual; but if they were un- 
just, the peace could barely last until they could return to their 
homes and tell the people what they were.' The Roman Senate, 
plfeased with the spirit which was thus exhibited, declared 
that 'they who thus contended for freedom, were worthy to be 
Roman citizens,' and gave them all they demanded. 

"He wished then an American Senate to imitate their noble 
example. It was a cause worthy of imitation. He invoked the 
Senate to sift the complaints of South Carolina, for they alone 
were worthy to be American citizens who contended zealously 
for the principles of civil liberty, and are not fit subjects to be 
denounced and accursed." 

The Nullification Ordinance was to take effect on the first day 
of February 1833. On the 28 day of December 1832, Represen- 
tative Verplanck of New York introduced a bill in the House 
providing for a gradual reduction of duties for ten years. This 
bill was known as an Administration measure. Both Clay and 
Calhoun supported it, Calhoun stating that he supported it on the 
ground that "a sweeping and sudden reduction of duties would 
ruin American manufactures." He thus showed that he was 
■not unreasonable on the question of tariff. It became a law 
March the 2nd. 

Virginia, while opposing Nullification, sympathized with South 
Carolina, and sent Benjamin Watkins Leigh as a commissioner 
to that State to induce her, if possible, to rescind her ordinance. 
Hoping that Congress would reduce the duties to a revenue stand- 



214 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ard, South Carolina agreed to postpone action on her ordinance 
till the close of that session of Congress, which was on the 4th 
day of March. 

On the 12th day ©f February 1833 Mr. Clay jntroduced his 
celebrated compromise measure. He was the author of the policy 
of protection. His utterances appealed alike to both parties. 
He rose to the height of the occasion and proved himself a mas- 
ter in debate. He said in part : 

"In presenting the modification of the tarifif, which I am now 
about to submit, I have two great objects in view. My first ob- 
ject looks to the tariff. I am compelled to express the opinion, 
formed after most deliberate reflection, and on full survey of the 
whole country, that whether rightfully or wrongfully, the tariff 
stands in immediate danger. If it should even be preserved 
during this session, it must fall at the next session." This sledge- 
nammer stroke was intended for the tariff advocates. 

He next drew a dark and terrible picture of the failure to 
sustain the tariff laws, ranking its disastrous consequences above 
the repeal of the Edict of Nantes itself, saying: "The fall of 
that policy, sir, would be productive of consequence, calamitous 
indeed. When i look to the variety of interests which are in- 
volved, to the number of individuals interested, the amount of 
capital invested, the value of the buildings erected, and the whole 
arrangement of the business for the prosecution of the various 
branches of the manufacturing art which have sprung up under 
the fostering care of the Government, I can not contemplate any 
evil equal to the sudden overthrow of all these interests. His- 
tory can produce no parallel to the extent of the mischief which 
would be produced by such disaster. The repeal of the edict of 
Nantes itself was nothing in comparison with it. That condemn- 
ed to exile, and brought to ruin a number of persons. The most 
respectable portion of the population of France were condemned 
to exile and ruin by that measure. But in my opinion, sir, the 
sudden repeal of the Tarifl: policy would bring ruin and destruc- 
tion on the whole people of the country. There is no evil, in 
my opinion, equal to the consequences that would result from 
such a catastrophe." This artful master stroke was aimed at 



BICHAKDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 215 

the s>-mpathies of the opponents of the tariff, and it did not miss 
its mark. 

He next reverts to the complaints of the people of South Car- 
ohna and their allies. He asks: "What, sir, are the complaints 
which so unhappily divide the people of this great country? On 
the one hand, it is said by those who oppose the Tariff,' that it 
unjustly taxes a portion of the people, and paralizes their indus- 
try; that it is to be a perpetual operation; that there is to be no 
end to the system, which, right or wrong, is to be urged to their 
inevitable ruin. And what is the just complaint on the other 
hand, of those who support the Tariff? It is that the policy 
of the Government is vascilating, and uncertain, and that there 
is no stability in our legislation. Before one set of books are 
fairly opened, it becomes necessary to close them, and to open 
a new set. Before a law can be tested by experiment, another is 
passed. Before the present law has gone into operation, before 
It IS nine months old, passed as it was under circumstances of 
extraordinary deliberation, the fruit of nine month's labor, before 
we know anything of its experimental effects, and even before 
it commences its operation, we are required to repeal it. On 
one side we are urged to repeal a system which is fraught with 
ruin; on the other sfde, the check now imposed on enterprise, 
and the state of alarm in which the public mind has been thrown, 
render all prudent men desirous, looking ahead a little way, to 
adopt a state of things on the stability of which they may have 
reason to count." 

There was no madness, no selfishness in this logic. His pa- 
triotism rose higher than his ambition. He was self-sacrificing 
even to endangering his opportunity of becoming president. 

Compare this speech with Lincoln's Cooper Institute Speech. 
That was addressed to a promiscuous and irresponsible political 
gathering :— this to the responsible United States Senate, the 
most dignified and intelligent political body in the world. That 
was a bid for the Presidency: — this was a plea that ignored the 
question of presidency ; — that was an appeal to passion, arraying 
one section of the country against the other; — this was an ap- 
peal to reason, to justice, to patriotism. That was an uncon- 



216 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

stitutional "effort to place" an unconstitutional "party on Con- 
stitutional ground ; — this was an effort to reconcile two opposing 
parties and maintain the Constitution unimpaired. That was 
based on the assertion that patriots were not sincere in their vot- 
ing; — this on the assumption that all true patriots are sincere 
however, they may differ. That was an effort to increase the 
antagonism between the two great sections of our common coun- 
try ; — this an effort to unite the two sections in the bonds of 
peace and friendship. That was a speech of exultation in which 
there was no spirit of sacrifice ; — this was a speech in which the 
speaker "offered up the darling system of his heart upon the 
altar of His country." 

The great orator swayed that Senate as it was never swayed 
before. He had no sooner finished than the equally great South 
Carolinian rose in his place. The spirit of true patriotism was 
very manifest on the floor of the Senate chamber and in the 
packed galleries. As soon as the wild applause had died out, 
the great Southerner said: "I shall give my vote in favor of 
the motion to introduce the resolution. He who loves the Union 
must desire to see this agitating question brought to a terminus. 
Until it shall be terminated we can not expect the restoration of 
peace, harmony, or a sound condition of things throughtout the 
country. 

"The general principles of this bill received his approbation. He 
believed that if the present difficulties were to be adjusted, they 
must be adjusted on the principles embraced in the bill, of fixing 
ad valorem duties, except in the few cases in the bill, to which 
specific duties are assigned. 

"It has been his fate to occupy a position as hostile as any one 
can in reference to the protecting policy: but if it depended on 
his will he would not give his vote for the prostration of the 
manufacturing interests. A very large capital has been invested 
in manufacturing interests which has been of great service to 
the country, and he would never give his vote to suddenly with- 
draw all these duties by which that was sustained in the channels 
into which it had been diverted There were some of the pro- 
visions which had his entire approbation, and there were some 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 217 

to which he objected. But he looked upon these minor points 
of difference, as points in the settlement of which no difficulty 
would occur, when gentlemen met together in that spirit of mu- 
tual compromise which, he doubted not, would be brought into 
their deliberations, without at all yielding the Constitutional ques- 
tion as to the right of protection." 

Tumultuous applause in the galleries followed these patriotic 
utterances. Clay's bill was passed in the midst of the greatest 
goodwill ; and thus ended the most exciting discussion that ever 
agitated the American public except the all-absorbing questions 
of the Sixties. These facts speak for themselves. 

It is the spirit of the partisan to declare that "the union of 
slaveocracy and State sovereignty explains Nullification in 1832 ;" 
and "Nullification was taken to protect slavery." (The Civil 
War from a Northern Standpoint, p. 201). Mr. Thorpe takes 
no pains to inform us what explains the Nullification of the 
Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution bv the thirteen North- 
ern States. Nor does he tell us what explains the Nullification 
of the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, to which amend- 
ment he thus alludes: "State sovereignty as a legal remedy was 
recognized by the Eleventh Amendment, yet it derived little sig- 
nificance from the amendment." But, like all others who have 
no Constitutional ground upon which to base an argument, he 
charges that the South, during the Sixties, was actuated by no 
motive except. to defend slavery. All knew that the South could 
not defend herself without indirectly defending slavery. As "the 
wrong of slavery" was the one war cry throughout the North in 
all her aggressive movements against the South it was falsely, 
but effectively, pretended that the South's only motive in resist- 
ing these aggressions was to defend slavery. The question of 
slavery was one of infinite insignificance in comparison with that 
of the peace and safety, and tranquility of Southern homes and 
Southern society. Self-aggrandizement is both hypocritical and 
heartless. It would sacrifice millions of lives to gain its own 
selfish ends. 

It is universally admitted that every question that disturbed 
the peace of the States had its origin in the North. It was there 



218 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the agitation of the slave question began. Denouncing the Con- 
stitution as "a compact with death and a covenant with hell," 
its agitation did not cease for a moment till it had culminated 
in war. Battlefields covered with the wounded and the dying 
and the dead appealed to it for pity in vain. It looked upon the 
strife of brothers, apparently, without commiseration until hun- 
dreds of thousands of enlightened American patriots had sacri- 
ficed their lives for the African, the beneficiary of both sections. 
This question had been the false but successful cry raised among 
the nations of Europe, during the strife, to prevent intervention. 
And when the war had ceased with the South's resources ex- 
hausted, her fields and homes laid waste, and the vast majority 
of her patriotic heroes asleep in patriot graves on the field of 
honor, the great crime of the terrible struggle was falsely charged 
to the South's defense of slavery, and to that alone, forgetting 
that the very charge carries with it its own refutation, — since 
there would have been no need of resistance by the South had 
there been no aggression of the North. Extremity is never so 
false as when a great crime is laid at its door. 

Daniel Webster was a member of the Senate when Clay intro- 
duced his compromise bill, and voted against it. As we have 
quoted from Calhoun and Clay, it is but just that we should also 
quote from tlie great Webster, the other name of "the immortal 
trio." He said : "The people created this Government. They 
gave it a Constitution, and in that Constitution they have enum- 
erated the powers which they bestow on it. They have made it a 
limited Government. They have defined its authority. They 
have restrained it to the exercise of such powers as are granted ; 
and all others, they declare, are reserved to the States, or the 
people. But they did not stop here. If they had they would 
have accomplished but half their work. No definition can be so 
clear as to avoid the possibility of doubt; no limitation so pre- 
cise as to exclude uncertainty." 

These are most remarkable words from the lips of a most re- 
markable man. He first states a number of great political truths, 
viz : That the States erected this Government ; gave it a Con- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 219 

stitution which enumerated its powers ; made it a limited Govern- 
ment ; defined its authority ; restrained its powers to such as 
were granted it by the States and that all powers not granted 
were reserved to the States, or the people, thus making "the 
people" and "the States" synonomous. These are recognized 
by all well informed men as indisputable facts. Therefore he 
could not deny them. Nor could he ignore them. Yet he must meet 
them. How is he to do it? By producing facts? No, facts are not 
self-contradictory. How then ? By his bare statements that will not 
stand the test of scrutiny: — statements that are in reality false? 
They are these : "But they did not stop here. If they had they 
would have accomplished but half the work." It is an undeniable 
fact that they did stop here. It is also an undeniable fact that they 
did accomplish their whole work. Even a Webster finds it nec- 
essary to contradict the opinion of as able a body of States- 
men, if not the ablest, that ever convened in America. It is cer- 
tain that the American Constitution, the product of their intellect, 
is regarded as the ablest political document the world has ever 
witnessed. All men of ordinary intellect can understand and 
know what powers are enumerated in the Constitution as granted 
to the Federal Government. Knowing this they know that all 
else is reserved to the States. Grant that "they did not stop 
here." Then what? Why, the restraining clause does, for even 
Webster must understand that this clause excludes the Federal 
Government from the exercise of any power not granted by the 
States. Whether that power be an imaginary power or a real 
power it must be specified in the Constitution, before the Federal 
Government can exercise it. Webster admits this when he says, 
"They have restrained it to the exercise of such powers as are 
granted ; and all others, they declare, are reserved to the States." 
Besides, like all other centralists, he bases his argument on 
false premises, viz : "No definition can be so clear as to avoid 
the possibility of doubt, no limitation so precise as to exclude un- 
certainty." It is seen that neither of these statements admits of 
a single exception. They are therefore universal propositions ; 
and all rules of logic show that one exception is enough to knock 
the props from under each of them. The one necessary excep- 



220 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tion as to the "no definition" is this : "An axiom is a self-evi- 
dent truth" — as the whole is greater than one of its parts. If 
we admit Webster's proposition to be true, his own argument is 
worth nothing; — no argument is. For if a definition can not 
be so clear as to avoid the possibility of doubt, neither can an 
argument. Do not both alike depend upon the clearness of ex- 
pression ? Does not clearness of expression in both cases depend 
upon the use of words? Has one the advantage over the other? 
If so, does not the advantage belong rather to a short and concise 
definition than to a complex and intricate argument? 

As to "no limitation is so precise as to exclude uncertainty" 
there are also millions of exceptions. A man stands on the ocean 
beach. He picks from the sand a pebble. It is so limited as to 
size that he entertains not the least doubt that a peck measure 
would hold thousands of them. The speed ot an arrow falling 
harmless at your feet finds a definite limitation "so precise as to 
exclude uncertaint}." As the premises on which an argument is 
based such is the conclusion. The premises of Webster are false. 
Therefore his conclusions are false. 

As reported in the Congressional Debates, Vol. 9, part 1, p. 
565^ Mr. Webster clearly contradicts these false conclusions of 
his own argument. According to that report he says : "The 
sovereignty of Government is an idea belonging to the other side 
of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in America. Our 
Governments are all limited. In Europe sovereignty is of federal 
origin, and imports no more than the State of the Sovereign. It 
comprises his rights, duties, prerogatives, and pov/ers. But with 
us all power is with the people. They alone are sovereign and 
they erect what governments they please, and confer on them such 
powers as they please. None of these governments are sovereign, 
in the European sense of the word, all being restrained by written 
Constitution." 

It is declared here that the people for the States, are the sov- 
ereigns, and that they erect v/hat governments they please and 
confer on them such powers as they please." Neither Madison 
nor JeflFerson has made a clearer statement as to the true charac- 
ter of our State and Federal Governments. There is no limit 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 221 

to the power of the people except their own will. If they will 
to withdraw from their present associations and establish an- 
other government of their own, the right is theirs. 

Also mark this clause : "All being restrained by written Con- 
stitutions," and consider it in connection with this comment of 
their eminent Northern historian, Francis Newton Thorpe, in his 
"The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint," on the Hayne- 
Webster debate : "Hayne, following Calhoun had appealed to his- 
tory and the letter of the Constitution ; Webster had appealed to 
the sentiments of the whole people, and the necessities of Civil 
Government." 

W^hat are we to thmk of this most eminent American States- 
man's abandoning, in his discussion, the written Constitution, by 
which he declares the Federal Government and the State Gov- 
ernments are restrained, and appealing "to the sentiments of 
the whole people?" What arc the sentiments of the whole peo- 
ple? Are they not as varied as the leaves of the forest, or the 
sands upon the seashore? Every nation of the world is repre- 
sented, and the diversity of tongues is most definite in compari- 
son with the diversity of sentiments. Was ever an appeal made 
to a more indefinite, or a more illogical base than that of "the 
sentiments of the whole people?" On the other hand Hayne and 
Calhoun "appealed to history and to the letter of the Constitution" 
— to history, the teachings and practice of the fathers ; — to the 
letter of Constitution — its real meaning as expressed in the clear- 
est of terms. For what purpose does a Constitution exist un- 
less it has a meaning and that meaning is observed? And how 
is its meaning made known except by the words in which the 
meaning of law is construed? There is but one correct rule by 
which the meaning of law is construed, viz ; By Its Letter. How 
worthless, then, is that argument which ignores the letter of the 
Constitution, — the letter which defines its true character; — and 
appeals to the sentiments of the whole people, among whom are 
not only foreigners of every tongue, but also ihe most ignorant, 
the most immoral, and the most vicious. In what respect and 
to what extent do the sentiments of these classes determine the 
character of this great Constitutional American Republic of Re- 



222 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

publics? Shall we tell it to the world? Can the Constitution be 
compared to the sentiments of these classes? Yet the sentiments 
of these classes are included in "the sentiments of the whole peo- 
ple !" This is the character of the logic that inaugurated that 
mighty conflict between brothers of different sentiments-^though 
a part of the whole people — in the days of the terrible Sixties. 

To appeal to the vague, confused, and most doubtful "senti- 
ments of the whole people" is to abandon the lofty standard of 
the Constitution. To abandon this most worthy standard is to 
founder in the great outside ocean of doubt and uncertainty. 
The moral standard that justifies this political practice may be 
"a very high law," but certainly not in the sight of Heaven, nor 
in the sight of common justice and fair dealing among men. 
Alas, for such morals! 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SOVEREIGNTY AND SECESSION 
CONTINUED. 

In the last chapter we saw Lincoln, a self-proclaimed Seces- 
sionist and Revolutionist. We saw Congress endorsing the mi- 
nority decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Chisolm 
vs. the State of Georgia, not waiting even one day before taking 
steps to submit the Eleventh Amendment to the States for their 
ratification; that this was done to put at rest forever the ques- 
tion of State Sovereignty. We saw the States adopting this 
amendment, thus declaring both by word and act that they were 
free and independent Sovereign States. We saw Mr. Thorpe, 
the chosen historian of the North, confessing that the object of 
the Eleventh Amendment was to declare constitutional the sov- 
ereignty of the States, but denying that it was effective. We 
also saw Mr. Thorpe declaring that Hayne and Calhoun in 
debate "appealed to the letter of the Constitution," while Mr. 
Webster, abandoning the Constitution, the one standard of right 
among the States, "appealed to the sentiments of the whole peo- 
ple." We thus saw who was true to the Constitution and who 
was not. The Constitution is the backbone of the Government. 
Break this, and the Government is a cripple forever. Abandon 
this, and we are in the woods of doubt, confusion and error. 
We saw Mr. Verplanck introducing the Administration's compro- 
mise measure and both Clay and Calhoun supporting it, and 
Webster opposing it. We saw five States in sympathy with 
South Carolina while opposing her method of redress. We saw 
thirteen States of this Union nullifying the Fugitive Slave 
clause in the Constitution and yet in the act of heaping abuse 
on South Carolina for doing what they had done. We saw Clay 
introducing his celebrated compromise measure, and heard his 
eloquent plea for peace and harmony. When he took his seat, 
we saw that other great Southerner rise in his place in the midst 
of the wildest enthusiasm, and declare his purpose to support the 
measure. We heard him declare he could do this without yield- 
ing the great principle for which he contended. We saw Web- 
ster opposing this measure. We saw President Jackson in his 



224 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

first message declaring the States sovereign and independent 
political bodies. We saw him in his last message, after eight 
eventful years in the White House declaring: "It is well known 
that there have been those always among us who wish to en- 
large the powers of the General Government. Every attempt 
to exercise powers beyond these limits (prescribed by the Con- 
stitution) should be promptly and firmly opposed." We saw 
Judge Bibb of Kentucky, asking in the United States Senate 
without receiving an answer, "If it was possible that the people 
of the States in adopting this Constitution, could have intended 
to surrender absolutely and forever the right which they had 
obtained by a Revolution ? So well did they understand the dif- 
ficulty of shaking off the powers which once enchained us, and 
so jealous were they of their newly acquired freedom, that they 
took care to say in the Constitution that the powers not dele- 
gated by them, were reserved for themselves." 

H'ave we seen, in this statement of facts, Andrew Jackson, by 
a show of force, putting down Nullification in South Carolina? 
Have we seen him, by his "firmness and decision," crushing out 
"incipient rebellion" in that State? Have we seen Calhoun's 
logic silenced by force, and his stately form bending to the stern 
will of Jackson? Rather, have we not seen that Nullification 
in South Carolina was intended to be a peaceable mode of ob- 
taining redress through the civil tribunals? Have we not seen 
Congress redressing the grievances of South Carolina, first by 
the Administration's measure, and then by Clay's compromise 
bill? In short, have we not seen that the yielding was on the 
part of the Federal Government, not on the part of the State o£ 
South Carolina? 

It may be a debatable question, how a State could remain in 
the Union, and yet refuse obedience to the laws of the General 
Government, not declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme 
Court. But what shall be said of these thirteen States that re- 
mained in the Union, and yet refused to obey the fundamental 
law of the land? South Carolina annulled an act of Congress 
to test its constitutionality in the civil courts. These States an- 
nulled the Constitution, and persisted in annulling it after the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 225 

Supreme Court had declared their ordinance unconstitutional. 
Which committed the greater sin against the Constitution, South 
Carolina or the thirteen Northern States? 

In 1798, Jefferson drew up a set of resolutions for the Ken- 
tucky Legislature at their request. In these resolutions he set 
forth the true nature of the United States Government. The 
first of these resolution is as follows : 

"Resolved, That the several States composing the United 
States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited 
submission to their General Government ; but that by compact 
under the style and title of the Constitution of the United States, 
and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Govern- 
ment for special purposes, delegated to that Government certain 
definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass 
of right to their own Self -Government ; and, that whensoever the 
General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are un- 
authorized, void, and of no force; that to this Compact each 
State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-state 
forming as to itself the other party; that this Government, cre- 
ated by this Compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge 
of the extent of the powers delegated to itself ; since that would 
have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure 
of its powers ; but, that as in all other cases of Compact, among 
parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right 
to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and 
measure of redress. (Randall's Life of Jefferson, Vol. 2, p. 
449). 

These are the words of a statesman, perhaps the best informed 
as to the nature of this Government, Madison alone excepted, 
that ever lived under its rule. He says the States "are not 
united on the principles of unlimited submission to their General 
Government," but "are united by a compact under the style and 
title of the Constitution and its amendments; that it is a "Gov- 
ernment for special purposes;" that it has definite powers, not 
unlimited ; that its powers are delegated, not inherent ; that each 
State is sovereign, having reserved "the residuary mass of right 
to its own Govrnment ; that "when the General Government as- 



226 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

sumes undelegated powers its acts are unauthorized, void, and 
of no effect ;" that each State acceded to this compact as a State, 
and is an integral party, the co-State forming, as to itself, 
the other party; that this compact (the Constitution) created 
the Government, and did not make the General Government the 
exclusive or final judge of the extent of its delegated powers; 
that had the General Government been made the exclusive and 
final judge of the extent of its delegated powers its own discretion, 
and not the Constitution, would have been made the measure of its 
powers; and that, as in the cases of all compacts in which the 
parties have no common judge each party has an equal right 
to judge for itself, both as to infraction and the mode and meas- 
ure of redress. 

This version of the Government met with such an overwhelm- 
ing approbation by the people that John Adams, at the head of 
the so-called Federalists, was swept from power, and Jefferson 
himself, upon a great wave of popular enthusiasm, was ushered 
into power, as the Chief Magistrate of the Government. Nor 
is that all, every president from John Adams to Lincoln was 
elected upon the principles of these resolutions. Do these facts 
teach nothing as to the nature of our Government? Their voice 
was the one acclaim of the sentiments of the people of this 
country from 1798 to 1860. 

On the 21st day of December, 1789, the General Assembly 
of Virginia adopted a set of resolutions concerning the "Alien 
and Sedition Laws." Madison was the head of the committee 
to whom the communications of the various States, relative to 
these resolutions, were referred. As the report of that Commit- 
tee is acknowledged to be the report of Madison on these reso- 
lutions we shall treat it as the views of Madison on the true 
nature of the Federal Government. That report in part is as 
follows : 

"The first resolution is an expression of the State's sincere 
and firm adherence in maintaining and defining the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and of their own State, against every 
aggression, both foreign and domestic, and in supporting the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 227 

United States Government in all measures warranted by the Con- 
stitution. 

"In the next resolution 'the General Assembly most solemnly 
declares a warm attachment to the Union of the States, to main- 
tain which it pledges all its powers ; and that, for this end, it is 
their duty to watch over and oppose every infraction of those 
principles, which constitute the only basis of that Union, because 
a faithful observance can alone secure its existence and the pub- 
lic happiness.' 

"No question can arise among enlightened friends of the 
Union, as to the duty of watching over and opposing every in- 
fraction of those, principles which constitute its basis, and a 
faithful observance of which can secure its existence, and the 
public happiness thereon depending. 

"The third resolution is in the words following: 'That this 
Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views 
the powers of the Federal Government, as resulting from the 
compact, to which the States are parties, as limited by the plain 
sense and intention of the instrument constituting that com- 
pact — as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants 
enumerated in that compact ; and that in case of a deliberate, 
palpable and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by 
the said compact, the States, who are parties thereto, have the 
right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the 
progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective 
limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them." 

"On this resolution the Committee have bestowed all the at- 
tention which its importance merits ; they have scanned it not 
merely with a strict, but with a severe eye; and they feel con- 
fidence in pronouncing that, in its just and fair construction, 
it is unexceptionally true in its several positions, as well as 
Constitutional and conclusive in its references 

"The resolution declares ; first, that it 'views the powers of 
the Federal Government, as resulting from the compact to which 
the States are parties, in other words, that the Federal pow- 
ers are derived from the Constitution; that the Constitution is 
a compact to which the States are parties. 



228 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The committee satisfy themselves here with briefly re- 
marking, that in all the contemporary discussions and comments 
which the Constitution underwent, it was constantly justified and 
recommended, on the ground that the powers not given to 
the Government, were withheld from it ; and, if any doubt could 
have existed on this subject, under the original text of the 
Constitution, it is removed, as far as words could remove it, 
by the 12th Amendment, now a part of the Constitution, which 
expressly declares, 'that the powers not delegated to the United 
States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, 
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' 

"The other position involved in this resolution, namely, that 
the States are parties to the Constitution or compact, is, in 
the judgment of the committee, equally free from objection. . . 
By 'the States' is meant the people composing those political 
societies, in their highest sovereign capacity. 

"The next position is that the General Assembly views the 
powers of the General Government, as 'limited by the plain sense 
and intention of the instrument constituting that compact,' and 
'as no farther valid than they are authorized by the grants 
therein enumerated.' It does not seem possible, that any just 
objection can lie against either of these clauses. The first amounts 
merely to a declaration, that the compact ought to have the 
interpretation plainly intended by the parties to it; and the other 
to a declaration, that it ought to have the execution and effect 
intended by them. If the powers granted be valid, it is solely 
because they are granted; and if the granted powers are valid, 
because granted, all other poivcrs not granted, must not be zfalid. 
(We have emphasized these last words because of their cogent 
statement of a great truth.) 

"The resolution having taken this view of the Federal com- 
pact, proceeds to infer: 'That in case of a deliberate, palpable, 
and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the 
said compact, the States, who are parties thereto, have the right, 
and are in duty bound, to interjxjse for arresting the progress 
of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, 
the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 229 

"It appears to your committee to be a plain principle founded 
in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential 
to the nature of compacts — that, where resort can be had to no 
tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties 
themselves must be the rightful judges in the last resort, whether 
the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitu- 
tion of the United States was framed by the sanction of the 
States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the 
stability and dignity, as well as to the authority of the Consti- 
tution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The 
States, then, being the parties to the Constitutional Compact, 
and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there 
can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide, in the last 
resort, whether the compact made by them be violated ; and 
consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves 
decide in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient 
magnitude to require their interposition. 

"It does not follow, that because the States as Sovereign par- 
ties to their Constitutional Compact, must utterly decide whether 
it has been violated, that such a decision ought to be interposed 
either in a hasty manner, or on doubtful and inferior occa- 
sions. . . But in the case of an intimate and constitutional 
union, like that of the United States, it is evident that the in- 
terposition of the parties, in their sovereign capacity, can be 
called for by occasions only, deeply and essentially affecting 
the vital principles of their political system. 

"The resolution has accordingly guarded against any misap- 
prehension of its object, by expressly requiring for such an inter- 
position, 'the case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous breach 
of the Constitution, by the exercise of powers not granted to 
it.' It must be a case not of light and transient nature, but of 
a nature dangerous to the great purposes for which the Consti- 
tution was established. It must be a case, moreover, not ob- 
scure or doubtful in its construction, but plain and palpable. 
Lastly, it must be a case not resulting from a partial consid- 
eration, or hasty determination : but a case stamped with a final 
consideration and deliberate adherence. It is not necessary that 



230 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the question should be discussed, how far the exercise of any 
particular power, ungranted by the Constitution, would justify 
the interposition of the parties to it. As cases might easily 
be stated, so flagrant and so fatal, as to unite every opinion 
in placing them within the description, 

"But the resolution has done more than guard against miscon- 
struction, by expressly referring to cases of a deliberate, pal- 
pable and dangerous nature. It specifies the object of the in- 
terposition which it contemplates, to be solely that of arresting 
the progress of the evil of usurpation, and of maintaining the 
authorities, rights and liberties, appertaining to the States as 
parties to the Constitution. 

"From this view of the resolution, it would seem inconceiv- 
able that it can incur any just disapprobation from those who, 
laying aside all monetary impressions, and recollecting the gen- 
uine source and object of the Federal Constitution, shall can- 
didly and accurately interpret the meaning of the General As- 
sembly. If the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, pal- 
pably withheld by the Constitution, could not justify the par- 
ties to it, in interposing even so far as to arrest the progress 
of the evil, and thereby to preserve the Constitution itself, as 
well as to provide for the safety of the parties to it, there would 
be an end to all relief from usurped power, and a direct sub- 
version of the rights specified or recognized under the Constitu- 
tion, as well as a plain denial of the fundamental principle on 
which our independence itself was declared." 

These resolutions, among other things, teach — 

That it is the unquestionable duty of the true friends of the 
Constitution to watch over that compact and oppose every in- 
fraction of it, for on its principles the Union is based ; and that 
only in this way can the Union's continued existence be secured, 
("Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.") 

That the Federal Government is the result of a compact to 
which all the States are parties; and that by the term, "the 
States" is meant the people of those political societies, known 
as States. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 231 

That all the discussions and comments which the Constitution 
underwent during its ratification by the several States, constant- 
ly testified that this document was justified and recommended on 
the ground that the powers, not given to the General Govern- 
ment, were withheld from it ; that if there could have been any 
doubt at all on this subject it was removed, as far as plain 
simple words could remove it, by the 12th Amendment — contain- 
ing not a word whose meaning is not definitely fixed and known 
— expressly declaring "that the powers not granted to the United 
States, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
States respectively, or the people;" and consequently no powers 
of the General Government are valid but granted powers, and 
these are valid solely because they are granted, and hence all 
other powers exercised by the General Government are not valid 
because not granted. 

That this limitation of the powers of the General Government 
is to be determined by the "plain sense and intention" of the 
Constitution, the meaning of which is so clear as to be un- 
mistakable. 

That in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise 
of powers not granted by the compact, which is the Constitu- 
tion, and to which the States are parties, it is the duty of the 
States to interpose and arrest the progress of the evil, and 
to maintain the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to 
the States, within their true limits. 

, That in all compacts, where there can be no resort to tribu- 
nal superior to the parties, common sense and the essential na- 
ture of compacts decide that the parties themselves must be the 
rightful judges, in the last resort, whether the bargain has been 
complied with or violated; that the Constitution, or Compact 
of the United States, was framed by the sanction of the States 
given each in its sovereign capacity; and since sovereign States 

are the parties to the Compact— the Constitution of the Union 

their very dignity adds to its exaltation and importance as well 
as to its authority; and because sovereigns are parties to the 
Compact, or the Constitution, there can, of necessity, be no tri- 
bunial above the parties themselves to decide, in the last resort 



232 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

whether the compact has been violated ; and, as a result, the 
States themselves must decide, in the last resort, all questions 
of such mag'nitude as to require their interposition. 

That being sovereign parties to their Constitutional Compact, 
and, therefore, the ultimate judges as to its violation, does not 
justify a hasty decision by the States, or their interposition 
on doubtful and inferior occasions ; that the States should in- 
terfere only on occasions deeply and essentially affecting the vital 
principles of their political system — that is, in cases of deliber- 
ate, palpable and dangerous breaches of the Constitution by the 
exercise of powers not granted. 

That if the deliberate exercise of dangerous powers, palpably 
withheld by the Constitution, could not justify the parties to 
it in interposing even so far as to arrest the progress of the 
evil, and thereby preserve the Constitution itself, and thus pro- 
vide for the safety of the parties to it, there would be an end 
to all relief from usurped powers, and a direct subversion of 
all Constitutional rights, ard a plain denial of the fundamental 
principles on which our very independence was declared. 

Thus wrote Madison, a member of the Convention that framed 
it. With him agree Jefferson, the Author of the Declaration 
of Independence, and all other authorities contemporary with the 
framing of the Constitution. Resolutions like these are most 
significant. They express the sentiment of the people in a broad 
and enduring form. The Virginia Resolutions and the Kentucky 
Resolutions establish the same great facts and teach the same 
great truths as to the nature of our Government. The princi- 
ples of these resolutions were dominant in this Government from 
1798 to 1860. 

As resolutions furnish evidence of a very high order, we 
shall now give another set of resolutions passed by the Senate 
of the United States on the 24th day of May, 1860, less than 
12 months before the beginning of the war. These resolutions 
are declarations of the Senators, or Ambassadors of the States 
themselves, and hence of the very greatest authority. They were 
introduced by Jefferson Davis, a patriot indeed, if fidelity to 
the Constitution is patriotism, on the 29th of February, 1860. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 233 

They were before the Senate almost three full months, lacking 
only 4 days, ample time in which to weigh them and decide as 
to their merits. They are as follows: 

"1. Resolved that in the adoption of the Federal Constitu- 
tion, the States adopting the same, acted severally as free and 
independent Sovereignties, delegating a portion of their powers 
to be exercised by the Federal Government for the increased se- 
curity of each against dangers, domestic as well as foreign; 
and that any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a 
combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of 
the others, on any pretext whatever, political, moral, or relig- 
ious, with a view to their disturbance or subversion, is in vio- 
lation of the Constitution, insulting to the States so interfered 
with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquility — objects for 
which the Constitution was framed — and, by necessary conse- 
quence, tends to weaken and destroy the Union itself. 

"2. Resolved, That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen States 
of this Union, compose an important portion of their domestic 
institution, inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the 
adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as con- 
stituting an important element in the apportionment of powers 
among the States, and that no change of opinion or feeling on 
the part of the non-slaveholding States of the Union, in relation 
to this institution, can justify them or their citizens in open or 
covert attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow ; and that 
all such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and sol- 
emn pledge to protect and defend the Union, and are a man- 
ifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn ob- 
ligations. 

"3. Resolved, That the Union of these States rests on the 
equality of rights and privileges among its members; and that 
it is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the 
States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to dis- 
criminate either in relation to persons or property in the Terri- 
tories, which are the common possessions of the United States, 
so as to give advantage to the citizens of one State which are 
not equally assured by those of every other State. 



234 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"4. Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legis- 
lature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an un- 
friendly character, possess power to annul or impair the Consti- 
tutional right of any citizen of the United States, to take his 
slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and 
enjoy the same while the Territorial condition remains. 

"5. Resolved, That if experience should at any time prove 
that the Judicial and Executive authority do not possess means 
to insure adequate protection to Constitutional rights in the Ter- 
ritory, and if the Territorial Government should fail or refuse 
to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be 
the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency. 

"6. Resolved, That the inhabitants of a Territory of the 
United States, when they rightfully form a Constitution to be 
admitted into the Union, may, then, for the first time, like the 
people of the State, when forming a new Constitution, decide 
for themselves whether slavery, as a domestic institution, shall 
be maintained or prohibited within their jurisdiction; and 'they 
shall be admitted into the Union, with or without slavery, as 
their Constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission. 

"7. Resolved, That the provision of the Constitution for the 
rendition of fugitives from service or labor, without the adop- 
tion of which the Union could not have been formed, and the 
laws of 1793 and 1850, which were enacted to secure its execu- 
tion, and the main features of which, being similar, bear the im- 
press of nearly seventy years of sanction by the highest judicial 
authority, should be honestly and faithfully observed and main- 
tained by all who enjoy the benefits of our Compact of Union, 
and that all acts of individuals or of State Legislatures to de- 
feat the purpose or nullify the requirements of that provision, 
and the laws made in pursuance of it, are hostile in character, 
subversive of the Constitution and revolutionary in their eflfect." 

These are very remarkable resolutions declaring remarkable 
facts, all of which had to be reversed to justify the war. The 
first resolution declares that the Constitution was formed by the 
States, and that these States acted severally as free and independ- 
ent Sovereignties; that they organized a Federal Government, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 235 

and delegated to it a portion of their powers to be exercised by it 
for the increased security of each against dangers, domestic 
and foreign ; and that any State interfering with the domestic 
institutions of another would violate the Constitution and would 
be insulting to the State so interfered with. This resolution 
was adopted by a vote of 36 Senators for it to 19 against it, 
almost two to one. The vote by States was 19 for it and 10 
against it, and the significant fact is that all of these 10 states that 
voted against it belonged to the number of States that had, by 
their Legislatures, annulled the Fugitive Slave Clause in the Con- 
stitution. Two States were divided and two did not vote. Were 
these 19 States revolutionary and rebellious? 

The second resolution affirms that negro slavery existed at 
the adoption of the Constitution, and now existed in 15 States 
as an inheritance from their ancestors ; and that no change of 
opinion on the part of the non-slaveholding States can justify 
them or their citizens in openly or covertly attacking this insti- 
tution with a view to its overthrow ; and that all such attacks 
are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to 
protect and defend each other, and in manifest breach of faith 
and manifest violation of the most solemn obligations. The Sen- 
ate of the United States said this on the 24th day of May, 
1860. Thus this august body called Lincoln and his party revo- 
lutionists. 

The third resolution declares that the Union rests on the 
equality of rights and privileges among the States ; that the 
Senate represents the States in their sovereign capacity, and 
that, therefore, as such representatives, it is the duty of the Sen- 
ate to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to per- 
sons or property in the Territories, the common property of 
all the States, thus condemning the platform of the Republican 
Party. It was the United States Senate that voted this con- 
demnation of that party on the 24th day of May, 1860. 

The fourth resolution declares that neither Congress nor a 
Legislature of a Territory has the power, either directly or in- 
directly to annul or impair the Constitutional right of any citi- 
zen of the United States to take his slave property into the 



236 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Common Territory and be protected in it. The Senate of the 
United States declared this by their vote on the 24th day of 
May, 1860, thus declaring unconstitutional the platform of the 
Republican party. 

The fifth resolution declares that if, at any time, the judicial 
and executive authority cannot insure adequate protection to 
Constitutional rights in a Territory, and the Territorial Gov- 
ernment should fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies, 
it is the duty of Congress to supply the deficiency. This was 
the declaration of the Senate, as made by resolution, on the 24th 
day of May, 18S0, and it is in perfect accord with all that the 
South demanded in the Sixties. 

The sixth resolution declares that a Territory, when forming 
a Constitution, may, like a State forming a Constitution, de- 
cide for itself whether it shall be proslavery or anti-slavery, 
thus again contradicting the platform of the unconstitutional 
party 

The seventh resolution declares that the Constitution could not 
have been formed without the clause for the rendition of fugi- 
tives from service or labor ; and that the laws enacted to se- 
cure its enforcement bear the impress of nearly seventy years 
of sanction by the very high authority of the Supreme Court ; 
that these laws should be honestly and faithfully observed and 
maintained; and that all acts of individuals or State Legisla- 
tures to defeat the purpose or nullify the requirements of that 
provision of the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance 
of it, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution 
and revolutionary in their effect. It was no less a political 
body than that of the Senate of the United States that thus 
declared, in connection with other expressions of censure, that 
the platform of the Republican Party in 1860, was subversive 
of the Constitution and revolutionary in its effect. To sum 
up: 

Thus the United States Senate affirmed that the States framed 
the Constitution ; that the States were free and independent 
Sovereignties ; that the General Government which the States es- 
tablished, is a Federal Government ; that th-'s Federal Govern- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 237 

ment is founded on a Compact known as the Constitution; and 
that any interference, openly or covertly, directly or indirectly, 
by any State or citizen of any State, with the domestic institu- 
tions of any other State, would be a manifest breach of plighted 
faith; and that all acts of Legislatures or citizens to nullify 
the Constitution clause requiring the rendition of fugitives 
from service, are subversive of the Constitution and revolu- 
tionary. 

To offset the effect of these resolutions it has been affirmed 
that they were passed by a strictly party vote ; that every Demo- 
crat voted for them and every Republican voted against them. 
The vote and the facts we have given in this connection con- 
tradict this false assertion. It has also been affirmed that these 
resolutions were but the basis of a conspiracy to rebel against 
the Constitution and the Government. The resolutions them- 
selves contradict this false charge. There is not a word in all 
the seven resolutions but what invokes the exercise of its plain 
meaning. If there be rebellion in these resolutions, it is not 
against the Constitution, as declared by the Senate, but against 
its subversion and the revolutionary spirit of the Republican 
party. 

We next present the Federal Government itself in testimony 
as to the Independence and Sovereignty of the States and the 
Right of Scession. Charles Francis Adams, a greatgrandson of 
the elder Adams and grandson of the younger Adams, and a 
brave Union soldier, says : "It is a noticeable fact that ante- 
rior to 1840 the doctrine of the right of secession seems to have 
been taught at West Point as an admitted principle of Con- 
stitutional law." He was referring to the fact that "Rawle's 
View of the Constitution" was the text-book on that subject 
prior to 1840 in the West Point Military Academy. 

Mr. Adams informs us that Wm. Rawle, its author, was an 
eminent Philadelphia lawyer, 29 years of age at the time the 
Constitution was adopted, and already in active professional 
life; that in 1792 he was offered a judicial position by Wash- 
ington ; that subsequently he was for many years Chancellor 
of the Law Association of Philadelphia, and principle author of 



238 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the Revised Code of Pennsylvania. He stood in the front rank 
of legal luminaries of the first third of the century. His in- 
stincts, sympathies and convictions were all national. (The Con- 
stitutional Ethics of Secession and War is Hell, p. 16.) 

This testimony as to Rawle shows him to have been an au- 
thority well qualified to decide upon the nature and character 
of this Government. And Mr. Adams himself who thus testi- 
fies as to his fitness as an authority is President of the His- 
torical Society of the State of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Rawle says : "The States then may wholly withdraw from 
the Union ; but while they continue they must retain the char- 
acter of Representative Republics." (290.) 

"The secession of a State from the Union depends on the 
will of such people of such State. The people alone, as we 
have already seen, held the power to alter their Constitution. 
The Constitution of the United States is, to a certain extent, 
incorporated in the Constitutions of the several States by the 
act of the people." — p. 295. 

"But as to manner by which a secession is to take place, 
nothing is more certain than that the act should be delibera- 
tive, clear and unequivocal." How well this fits the Eleven 
Southern Seceding States in their acts of secession ! In the 
case of each seceding State the question as to the wisdom of 
the policy of Secession was discussed pro and con in the press, 
on the rostrum and in the Convention hall. By a Legislative 
act, it was submitted in each State to the popular vote prior 
to secession. Delegates met in Convention in each State. There 
the question was ably debated for and against the wisdom of 
secession, no one doubting the Constitutional right to secede. 
There was no haste; all was deliberation. The fact is that a 
majority of these States delayed action, hoping that the vic- 
torious party would reconsider and be true to their Constitutional 
obligations, till hope had failed them. Some despaired of hope 
sooner than others. There were those — a few — that delayed till 
the proposed amendments to the Constitution suggested by the 
Peace Congress, called at the suggestion of Virginia, and all 
other remedies had failed; and still they hoped and refused to 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 239 

act till called upon to furnish their quota of troops to coerce 
their brethren of the South for exercising a right the Consti- 
tutionality of which they had never doubted. 

Prof. R. Bingham, Principal of the Bingham School, Ashe- 
ville. North Carolina, in his "Prefatory Remark" to "Sectional 
Misunderstanding," referring to Rawle's View of the Constitu- 
tion, says: 

"The crux of the following paper is the historic fact, often 
asserted and never oflficially denied, that, from 1825— the year 
during which Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis entered the 
U. S. Military Academy— to as late as 1840, and probably later, 
the U. S. Government taught its cadets at West Point from 
Rawle's View of the Constitution, that the Union was dissolu- 
ble, and, that if it should be dissolved, allegiance reverted to 
the States. . . Some conclusive documentary proof of this his- 
toric fact is hereby offered, for the first time, as far as the writer 
knows, or has been able to ascertain." 

Some of this historic proof is now and here submitted: 

On the 3d of December, 1904, the Librarian of Congress 
wrote Prof. Bingham as follows: "I find on examination of 
the Annual Catalogues of West Point Military Academy that no 
text-books appear to be named until A. D. 1843. (Signed) A. 
R. Spofford." 

On the 18th of November, 1904, A. L. Miles, Brig. Gen., 
U. S. A., Supt. from Headquarters U. S. Military Academy, 
West Point, N. Y. : "In the following Memorial Volume of the 
Military Academy, now being printed will appear the following 
note regarding the book: 

"342. 73 R. 20 Rawle (Williams) : A View of. the Constitu- 
tion of the United States of America, Phil. 1825, V. O. 

"The text-book of the Law Department, from (?) to (?). 
The copy of this book owned by the Library of the U. S. Mili- 
tary Academy makes it very probable that it was used as a text- 
book. (Signed) A. L. Miles, Brig. Gen. U. S. A. Supt." This 
is the second link, which, taken with the first link, given above, 
renders it very probable indeed that Rawle's View of the Con- 
stitution was used as a text-book at West Point. 



240 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"On the 23d of November, 1904, Edward S. Holden, Libra- 
rian, wrote from West Point, N. Y., to Prof. Bingham, The 
copy of Rawle's (William) "A View of the Constitution of 
the U. S. of America," Philadelphia, 1825, V. O., owned by the 
United States Military Academy, contains ms notes which make 
it very probable that this book was used as a text-book, at the 
Military Academy, in as much as there is a list of sections and 
lessons marked. The book contains no information as to just 
the period which it was used as a text-book, nor have I been 
able to find this out up to the present time." The very prob- 
able proof is now approaching the absolute certainty. 

"On the loth of December, 1904, Wm. Brook Rawle, a great- 
grandson of Wm. Rawle, of Philadelphia, 211 C. Sixth street, 
wrote Prof. Bingham : The book entitled "A View of the Con- 
stitution of the U. S. of America," was written by my great- 
grandfather . . . The work, I have always understood, was for 
many years a text-book in the U. S. M. Academy at West 
Point. 

"On the 27th day of January, 1905, John Rawle of Natchez, 
Mississippi, wrote to Prof. Bingham : "In reference to Wm. 
Rawle, my grandfather, I am aware that his view of the Con- 
stitution of the United States was used as a text-book at West 
Point, but I do not recollect in what years it was. Gen. R, E. 
Lee et al said that they were taught that book while at West 
Point. 

"General Lee told Bishop Wilmer of Louisiana, that if it 
had not been for the instruction he got from Rawle's, the text- 
book at West Point, he would not have left the old army, and 
joined the South at the breaking out of the late war between 
the States." 

On the 19th of January, 1905, Mrs. M. L. Leeds, granddaugh- 
ter of Wm. Rawle, wrote to Prof. Bingham from New Orleans: 
"I am positive that the work of my grandfather, Wm. Rawle, 
was used as a text-book at West Point. I have heard this 
from my own father, Judge Edward Rawle, who died in 1880, 
a son of the author of the work." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 241 

Joseph Wilmer, a son of Bishop Wilmer, wrote Prof. Bing- 
ham from Rapidan, Va., Feb. 10, 1905 : "I have a distinct recol- 
lection of my father's statement that Gen. Lee told him 'Rawle's 
was the text-book at West Point during his cadet-ship.' " 

Judge George L. Christian, of Richmond, Va., wrote to Prof. 
Bingham in December, 1904, "I have frequently heard Gen, 
D. H. Maury and Fitzhugh Lee state the fact that 'Rawle on 
the Constitution' was the legal text-book at West Point, when 
Gen. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and Stonewall Jackson were 
cadets there, and later on was a text-book when I was there." 

Gen. Dabney in So. Historical Papers, Vol. 6, p. 249, says: 

"It (Rawle) remained a text-book at West Point till ; and 

Mr. Davis and Sidney Johnston and Gen. Joe. Johnston, and 
Gen, Lee, and all the rest of us, who retired with Virginia from 
the Federal Union, were not only obeying the plain instincts 
of our nature and the dictates of duty, but we were obeying 
the very inculcations we had received at the National School. 
It is not probable that any of us ever read the Constitution, 
or any expositions of it, except this work of Rawle, which we 
studied in our graduating year at West Point. I know I did 
not." 

Here is proof absolute that Rawle's View of the Constitution 
was a text-book at West Point, and that such was the case 
when Davis and the Lees and the Johnstons, and other distin- 
guished Confederate Generals were cadets there. Is this testi- 
mony worthless? It is certain that the dictum of the Republi- 
can Party was placed above the teachings of history and the 
plain meaning of the Constitution. 

The entire South is under lasting obligations to Prof. Bing- 
ham for his most important contribution to the truth of history. 
It places the vindication of the South beyond the reach of doubt 
or censure. The South's thanks are also due to Charles Francis 
Adams, a brave Union soldier, for his testimony of like char- 
acter, in these words : "Story's Commentaries was published in 
1833. Prior to its appearance the standard text-book was 
Rawle's View of the Constitution." 

We shall close this chapter with only a few other all-impor- 



242 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tant witnesses. Massachusetts, in the very beginning of her 
Articles of Confederation, set forth the conspicuous declaration 
that "each State retained its soverei^ty and freedom and in- 
dependence." 

New Hampshire, in revising her Constitution in 1792, used 
the same words as Massachusetts with the exception of State 
for Commonwealth. 

In the Federalist the question was frequently asked during 
the adoption of the Constitution by the States, "If the princi- 
ples of the Confederation require that in the establishment of 
the Constitution the States should be regarded as distinct and 
independent Sovereignties. They are so required by the Con- 
stitution proposed." (Federalist N. 40). 



CHPTER XVIII. 
THE NORTH THE REAL REBELS. 

It is now evident that we have arrived at a point in this dis- 
cussion which justifies the above caption. The mere fact that 
the U. S. Government taught her own cadets in her own school, 
at West Point, the right of secessoin is sufficient evidence with- 
in itself, to establish this right beyond dispute. But especially 
is this true since the States, in framing the Constitution, re- 
served the right to themselves by not delegating it away in ex- 
press terms. Especially, also, is this true when we consider 
Lincoln's testimony given in the Congress in 1848, remembering 
always that the nearer the witness is to the tim,e of inaugu- 
ration of the Constitution, as a general rule, the truer is he to 
that instrument. Especially, also, is this true when we consider 
the testimony of the Eleventh Amendment ; that of the Declara- 
tion of Independence; that of the early Constitutions of Massa- 
chusetts and New Hampshire, to say nothing of the many other 
corroborating ordinances of the States of New York, Rhode Is- 
land and Virginia, to which we shall refer in the next chap- 
ter, and in which these States expressly based their ratification 
of the Constitution on the condition that they could withdraw 
from the Union. 

But as in all very important transactions between men in their 
private aflfairs, a multitude of facts are not out of order, so 
in this very important question as to the sovereignty of the 
States and their consequent right of secession, a multitude of 
facts will not be out of place. Hence from the mountain of 
telling facts, vindicating the South, we propose to select a few 
others, which also bear, on their face, truth and verity. 

In the 4th Edition of the Republic of Republics — Little, Brown 
& Co. — are these words : "Another event of great historical in- 
terest, in which Judge Clifford participated, was a Solemn Con- 
sultation of a small number of the ablest lawyers of the North 
in Washington, a few months after the war, upon the momen- 
tous question as to whether the Federal Government should 



244 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

commence a criminal prosecution against Jefferson Davis for the 
participation and the leadership in the war of Secession. In 
this council, which was surrounded at the time with the utmost 
secrecy, were Attorney-General Speed, Judge Clifford, Wm. 
Evarts, and perhaps a half dozen others, who had been selected 
from the whole Northern profession for their legal ability and 
acumen, and the result of their deliberation was the sudden aban- 
donment of the idea of a prosecution in view of the insurmount- 
able difficulties in the way of getting a final conviction." 

We have just referred to Rawle's "View or the Constitution" 
as a text-book at West Point, an unanswerable argument of the 
fact in behalf of the Right of Secession, as taught by the Gov- 
ernment itself. We have, now, in this "Solemn Consultation" 
another view of the Constitution, known by the title of the "Sol- 
emn Consultation's Views." Rawle's view was that of one man, 
but adopted by the Government, The Solemn Consultation's 
View was that of an entire council, composed of the ablest 
lawyers in the North — lawyers selected from the whole legal 
profession of the North for their known ability and acumen. 
They were aided in this most solemn council by Attorney-Gen- 
eral Speed, whose name is very significant in this connection ; for 
the result of their deliberations was the Speedy abandonment of 
the idea of a prosecution in view of the insurmountable diffi- 
culties in the way of securing a final conviction. 

What were these insurmountable difficulties ? We are not told, 
and yet all men know, that it was no less than the Impassable 
Mountain of the American Constitution. Why was not such a 
solemn consultation invoked before the war? 

Echo repeats the question, why 
Yet brings back no other reply. 

What a confession have we here? The Government had waged 
a most gigantic war against the South for the reason that Seces- 
sion was unconstitutional and treasonable. Yet within a few 
months after the end of that mighty conflict, the most terrible 
and most destructive known to modern history; yea, before the 
smoke of battle had cleared away, this same Government had con- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 245 

fessed that the war had been waged without constitutional au- 
thority. Who were the real rebels? Who were the real patriots? 

Davis was acquitted when that most Solemn Council had held 
that most Solemn Consultation, and had made its report to the 
officials of the Government. But he was not immediately re- 
leased. On the contrary, he was imprisoned in the strongest 
fort in all North America. He was conducted thither with great 
pomp and display, his arm being in the firm grasp of a Federal 
General, who had a legion at his back. He was confined in a 
cell within a cell, only a few feet above the water line, and so 
dark as to require a lighted lamp day and night. Two senti- 
nels were placed within that cell and paced to and fro day and 
night. He was proclaimed to the world as a felon, treated as 
a felon, fed as a felon, and shackeled as a felon. Yet, all this 
time he had been acquitted by that most Solemn Council in 
that most Solemn Consultation. Why all this? What does it 
mean? Was there no deception here? We pause on the very 
threshold of the answer, for the world had already given an- 
swer. Some future Shakespeare will dramatize this great wrong 
and deception in immortal verse. Some future Raphael will 
place it upon canvas in colors that will glow to the end of time. 

How was such an imposition passed off upon the American 
public? It was due to Ignorance and Passion. Passion was 
the power and ignorance of the Constitution was the tool. Men, 
well informed on other subjects, know little of the Constitu- 
tion from personal study of that instrument. We have, in a 
previous chapter, shown that even a distinguished Major Gen- 
eral makes this confession for himself and other West Point 
graduates, viz. : "It is not probable that any of us ever read 
the Constitution, or any exposition of it except in this of Rawle, 
which we studied in our graduating class at West Point." If 
a distinguished military officer, whose calling demanded more 
or less intimate knowledge of the Constitution, does not read 
it, what is to be said of the great masses whose occupations do 
not require it? It is a most serious fact that this general and 
wide-spread ignorance of the Constitution is full of peril to our 
Republic. Wide-range ignorance of the fundamental law of 



246 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

any Government, whatever be its nature, is most dangerous in 
the hands of unscrupulous ambition. But how much greater is 
the danger in a Republic like ours! 

Charles Francis Adams, the distinguished citizen and histo- 
rian of Massachusetts, whom we have already introduced to the 
readers of this volume, says, "When the Federal Constitution 
was framed and adopted, what was treason ; to what or to whom, 
in case of final issue, did the average citizen owe allegiance? 
Was it to the Union or to his State? As a practical question 
seeing things as they then were — sweeping aside all incontro- 
vertible legal arguments and metaphysical disquisitions — I do not 
think the answer admits of doubt. If put in 1788, or indeed at 
any time anterior to 1825, the immediate reply of nine men 
out of ten in the Northern States, and ninety-nine out of a 
hundred in the Southern States, would have been that as be- 
tween the Union and the States, ultimate allegiance was due 
to the State." What a confession on which to justify the 
acts of Lincoln's Administration ! 

How was this stubborn fundamental fact overcome at the 
North? By false inference, by false constructions, and perver- 
sions of the Constitution. Truly has it been said : ''It has not 
been the experience of mankind that words on parchment can 
arrest power." 

Witness the perversion of the Constitution, and false infer- 
ence and false construction in the following: "The Federal 
Constitution was theoretically and avowedly based on the idea 
of a divided sovereignty in utter disregard of the fact that sov- 
ereignty does not admit of division." Here is a misstatement 
of fact in strong language by no less a character than Charles 
Francis Adams. It is so stated as to be most effective on 
the minds of all whose prejudices incline in that direction. But 
the truth is that the Constitution was neither theoretically, nor 
avowedly based on any such idea as a divided sovereignty. The 
framers of the Constitution were thoroughly familiar with the 
nature of sovereignty. They knew that sovereignty could not be 
divided, and they did not attempt to divide it. If they did not 
attempt to divide it of course they did not avow it. If they did 



EICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 247 

avow it, let Mr. Adams point to the volume and the page con- 
taining the record of that avowal! We know of but one in- 
stance in Vv^hich an authority has used the term, divided sover- 
eignty, and that was not made by the framers of the Constitu- 
tion, but by Judge Iredell, an Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court, and he regarded it as in the sense of the divided powers 
of sovereignty. He made the two expressions identical. We 
quote from Judge Iredell's decision in the famous case of Alex- 
ander Chisolm vs. the State of Georgia, as follows: "Every 
State in the Union, in every instance where its sovereignty has 
not been delegated to the United States, is considered to be as 
completely sovereign as the United States are in respect to the 
powers of the sovereignty surrendered. The United States are 
sovereign as to all the powers actually surrendered; each State 
in the Union is sovereign as to all the powers reserved." 

While Judge Iredell incautiously uses words in this quota- 
tion which may be briefly summed up to mean delegated or divi- 
ded sovereignty, he at the same time makes clear his meaning 
by the expressions, "The powers of sovereignty surrendered," 
"all the powers of sovereignty" actually surrendered, and "all 
the powers of sovereignty actually reserved." All the defend- 
ers of the Great War are in an emergency. The Constitution 
is clearly against them. Necessity will catch at all stray words, 
and all unmeaning phrases, to keep afloat rather than go down 
in the sea of wrong. 

It is not to be doubted that there was in the Philadelphia 
Convention that drafted the Constitution, a party that strongly 
advocated a consolidated Government wtih paramount author- 
ity over the Sovereign States. By this party a resolution was 
introduced in the Convention "to negative all laws passed by 
the several States, contravening, in the opinion of the National 
Legislature, the Articles of the Union, or any treaties under the 
authority of the Union." With what success did this proposi- 
tion meet? It was voted down by seven States against to three 
for it. Whereupon Martin Luther, a strong States-rights man, 
immediately introduced this resolution, the substance of which 
was incorporated in the Constitution: "That the legislative acts 



248 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of the States made by virtue and in pursuance of the Articles 
of the Union, and all treaties, made and ratified under the au- 
thority, of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the 
respective States, as far as those acts or treaties shall relate to 
the said States, or their citizens and inhabitants ; and that the 
judiciaries of the several States shall be bound thereby in their 
devisions, and anything the respective laws of the individual 
States to the contrary notwithstanding," 

This propostion was unanimously adopted, and its substance 
inserted in the Constitution. It did not change the character 
of the Government in the least. It was offered not because neces- 
sary, but out of "abundant caution." When two nations form 
a treaty the terms of that treaty are the supreme law in both 
countries without diminishing in the least the sovereignty of 
each. Yet the centralists, in their dire extremity, quote this 
clause as making the General Government supreme over the 
Sovereignty of the States. The very caution of the framers of 
the Constitution to exclude the idea of a consolidated Republic 
is made the basis of an effort to prove that it is consolidated. 
To do this they disassociate the words, "shall be the supreme 
law of the respective States" from their connection, and treat 
them without their limitation to legislative acts of the States, 
made in pursuance of the Constitution and treaties made and 
ratified in pursuance of the same authority. 

There was no stronger centralist in the Constitutional Con- 
vention than Alexander Hamilton, but he was as true to truth 
as he was extreme as a centralist. In Dawson's Edition of the 
Federalist, No. 31, p. 206, referring to this clause he declares, 
"It is said the laws of the Union are to be the Supreme law 
of the land. But what inference is to be drawn from this, 
or what would they amount to if they were not supreme? It 
is evident that they would amount to nothing. A law, by the 
very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule 
which those to whom it is prescribed, are bound to observe. . . 

"The clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the 
Union only declares a truth which flows immediately and nec- 
essarily from the institution of a Federal Government. It will 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 249 

not, I presume, have escaped observation that it expressly con- 
fines this supremacy to the laws made pursuant to the Constitu- 
tion, which I mentioned merely as an instance of caution in the 
Convention, since that limitattion would have been to be un- 
derstood, although it had not been expressed." 

No man in his day was a more extreme Centralist than Alex- 
ander Hamilton. No man in his day more loyally accepted the 
fact that the Philadelphia Convention had framed a truly Fed- 
eral Government, composed of independent Sovereignties, than 
did Alexander Hamilton. He declares in unanswerable conclu- 
sions that this clause was inserted in the Constitution out of 
abundant caution; that he so stated in the Convention that 
framed the Constitution ; and that it neither added to nor took 
from the limitation of the powers of the Federal Government. 
In No. 27 of the Federalist he declares the Government of the 
Union to be a Federal Government, calls it a Confedracy and 
speaks of its laws as "the laws of a Confederacy." 

The Articles of the Confederation had no such clause, and 
yet Madison shows that "the treaties made by Congress, under 
the Articles of Confederation, had been declared by Congress 
and recognized by most of the States, to be the Supreme law 
of the land." Also Judge Chase of the U. S. Supreme Court, 
in 1796, rendered a decision (3d Dallas 99), that "Treaties made 
by Congress according to the Constitution were the supreme laws 
of the States because the Confederation (not a centralized gov- 
ernment), made them obligatory in all the States. They were 
so declared by the Legislatures and Executives of most of the 
States; were so declared by Congress on the 13th of April, 
1787 ; and were so decided by the judiciary of the general Gov- 
ernment and Congress and State Legislatures and State Execu- 
tives, and State judiciaries agree with Hamilton that Martin's 
resolution was substantially incorporated in the Constitution out 
of abundant caution— that is, it did not change the meaning 
of the Constitution in the least. Oh ! the straits, to which nec- 
essity is subjected! Oh! the acts of an emergency that con- 
fronts exaltation and honor with shame and dishonor ! To such 
a necessity a shadow is substance! To such an emergency a 



250 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

mere phrase, out of its connection, is a volume full of unanswer- 
able argument! 

Outside the Constitution there is a vast field w^ell adapted to 
the exercise of the imagination. In this chapter we have con- 
sidered a product of this faculty, known as "a divided sover- 
eignty" which was not a divided sovereignty. We shall now 
consider another product of this fruitful faculty. It is known as 
"a Pious Fraud." Just as there is no such thing as a divided 
sovereignty so there is no such thing as a pious fraud. This 
unstable basis to prove that the Federal Government had ab- 
sorbed the sovereignty of the States is also from the gifted pen 
of Charles Francis Adams. If a better basis could be found, 
Mr. Adams would find it. He says, "A pious fraud was, in 1788, 
perpetrated on the average American." Note the word "perpe- 
trated," meaning, according to Webster, "committed as an evil 
act," and Webster says it is "always used to express an evil 
act.' Given this definition, is a pious fraud possible? But that 
is Mr. Adam's premise. If there can be no pious fraud, there 
can be no pious conclusion based on it. 

But let us examine Mr. Adams' exposition of this strange 
production of the imagination . Here it is: "It is impossible to 
believe that a man so intellectually acute as Mr. Hamilton failed 
to see the inherent weakness of the plan proposed. He did 
see it; but under existing conditions it was, from his standpoint, 
of view, the best attainable." What fact in history corroborates 
this statement? Examine it: You will find mere assertions 
only. Nor are they complimentary to the great Hamilton, one 
among the first citizens of his day, a gentleman highly esteemed 
among his contemporaries by both friends and foes for his sterl- 
ing honesty. The aid-de-camp of the peerless Washington dur- 
ing the war of the Revolution, he was his first and most efficient 
Secretary of the Treasury, and constant and trusted friend in 
private life as well as in public life. Surely such a character 
was incapable of perpetrating a fraud, and such a fraud ! Were 
Hamilton living he would repudiate the compliment ( ?) with 
indignant scorn. We shall refute the charge for him with his 
own carefully chosen words. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 251 

On the 24th day of June, 1788, the very year in which he 
is charged with having perpetrated this pious fraud, Mr. Ham- 
ilton, while advocating the adoption of the Constitution, said: 
"That two supreme powers cannot act together is false. They 
are inconsistent only when aimed at each other, or at one in- 
dividual object. The laws of the United States are Supreme 
as to all their Constitutional objects; the laws of the States su- 
preme in the same way. The supreme laws may act without 
clashing; or they may operate on parts of the common object 
with perfect harmony. . .The Constitution is framed upon truly 
Republican principles; and as it is expressly designed for the 
common and general welfare of the United States, it must be ut- 
terly repugnant to subject the State Governments." 

These lofty and patriotic sentiments, these profound utter- 
aces lift Hamilton infinitely above the low, degrading, guilty 
level of perpetrating a fraud. They remind us that Hamilton 
and Jefiferson and Madison and all the leading statesmen, of 
Hamilton's day, understood the nature of the American Consti- 
tution alike. They also teach us that the Constitution, in its 
adoption was subjected to the severest test— that every word 
of it was given a searching criticism. This fact alone excludes 
all idea of fraud. Why do the Nationals ground their argument 
upon so low, so degrading a basis? Is it because they can find 
no better? It is far below the Constitutional level. It is a 
well known fact that Hamilton, in the Convention that framed 
the Constitution, advocated "a strong central government." Did 
this fact have anything to do with this charge of fraud ? Though 
all know Hamilton as the leading anti-States-rights delegate in 
the Convention, how few there are who even know he advocated 
the adoption of the Constitution! How fewer are they who 
know that he construed the Constitution with Jefferson and 
Madison! How fewer still are they who know his sterling 
worth as a citizen, a patriot and a character ! How few, indeed, 
are they who know that, when, in 1798, an invasion was appre- 
hended from France, and provisional army had been called into 
the field. HamiFton's public services were again required; and, 
on the death of Washington in December, 1799, he succeeded 



252 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

to the chief command of the American forces! Could such a 
man, so honored, so trusted, perpetrate a fraud on his country- 
men — even a pious fraud? 

The very best the NationaHsts, or Anti-Constitutionalists can 
do is to depend upon a mere probability or doubt as a basis 
of defense for their cause. But the State-Rights Republicans, 
or Constitutionalists, select their defense from the great abund- 
ance of facts that result from the very nature of the Govern- 
ment. We therefore next introduce the record of the Conven- 
tion itself in its framing of the Constitution. The Hon. Ed- 
mond Randolph, of Virginia, introduced the following resolu- 
tion : 

"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Convention that a 
National Government ought to be established consisting of a 
Supreme Executive, Legislative and Judiciary," This was fol- 
lowed by 22 other resolutions — 23 in all — as reported by the 
Committee. In these resolutions the word National Government 
occurred no less than 26 times. The next day Mr. Elsworth of 
Connecticut moved to strike out the words, "National Govern- 
ment," and insert in their stead the words "Government of the 
United States," that is the States United — declaring that "this 
is the proper title." 

The motion was adopted by a unanimous vote. The very 
act of striking out the words, "National Government," and in- 
serting the words, "Government of the United States," in their 
instead, was a most significant and emphatic declaration by 
the States assembled in the Convention, that they were not fram- 
ing a National or Consolidated Government, but a Confedercy, 
as Hamilton called it, composed of Sovereign States, equal in 
all respects. 

This Confederacy was established by the highest authority 
known to the American people. This highest authority was no 
less than the sovereign people of the several Sovereign States 
in Convention assembled. Under the American theory of Gov- 
ernment the highest authority known to a Sovereign State is a 
Convention, duly elected by the people of such a State. Only 
such a convention represents the full power inherent in the sov- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 253 

ereign people. They are, therefore, the only bodies that can 
truly claim to be the sovereign people assembled. It is such a 
people assembled in such Conventions that adopt the Constitu- 
tions for Sovereign States. These Constitutions are of neces- 
sity the fundamental laws of the States. They prescribe the 
limits of legislation. They specify the duties and obligations 
of Legislatures. It, therefore, follows that all Legislatures are 
dominated by a supreme law, and are not, and cannot be, sov- 
ereign bodies, Congress is a Legislative body, working under a 
supreme law, the Constitution of the States United, and, there- 
fore, Congress is not and cannot be a Sovereign Body. Its 
limitations are fixed, and its duties are prescribed by a Supreme 
Law established by a Supreme People assembled in the name 
of the Supreme States in a Convention, called at the option 
of 13 free and independent Sovereignties. 

To deliberately violate the Constitution in the name of the 
"Worng of Slavery," or in any other name, is rebellion against 
the Constitution, and rebellion against the Constitution is rebel- 
lion against the Government established at Philadelphia in 1787 
and 1788. This the Republican Party did, and finally induced 
the North to share in their rebellion. The North, therefore, are 
the real rebels. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
A REPLY TO CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 

Charles Francis Adams says: "We have all heard of a much 
quoted remark of Mr. Gladstone to the effect that the Con- 
stitution of the United States was 'the most wonderful work 
ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of 
man.' This may or may not be so. I propose neither to af- 
firm nor controvert it, here and now, but however wonderful 
it may actually have been, it would have been more than won- 
derful, it would have been distinctly miraculous, had it on the 
instant so wrought with men as at once to transfer the allegi- 
ance and affection of these thirteen distinct Communities from 
their old traditional governments to one newly improvised. This 
hardly admits of discussion." 

This is a remarkable confession. It admits all that the South 
claims. It is perhaps from the highest historical authority in 
all New England, "the center of knowledge and light." It is 
from the honored and capable head of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society. As we shall see, he is a better and truer his- 
torian than logician. The declaration of this high authority 
is that "it would have been more than wonderful," yea, that 
"it would have been a distinct miracle" had the sovereign States 
of the Union, actually transferred their allegiance and their 
affection from their respective State Governments to the newly 
formed Federal Government. This is the main question at is- 
sue between the North and South, viz : The clear cut opimon of 
the framers of the Constitution and of the people of the States 
at the time of its adoption, as to the nature and meaning of that 
instrument. This confession of Mr. Adams is in line with the 
testimony of all history, viz : That the people of the respective 
States in the early days of this Republic did not transfer their 
allegiance and affection from their States to an untried ex- 
periment; and therefore did not exalt the Federal Government 
above their own State Governments. Upon what ground then 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 255 

can it be claimed that the Federal Government absorbed the 
sovereignty of the States? Also upon what other ground can 
we determine the question of right and justice between the two 
great sections of our common country than that of the Consti- 
tution—the Constitution as construed by its framers and its 
early expounders in the days of its adoption? Impartial his- 
tory will decide that there can be, and that there will be no 
other basis of determining this all-important question. Justice, 
like "truth, though crushed to earth, will rise again." 

From the very nature of things there can be no other basis 
than that of the Constitution on which to settle the question of 
right between the two sections. Was not the Constitution the one 
basis on which the Union was formed? This being true, every 
obligation of the States is bound up in the Constitution. These 
obligations are found nowhere else. How then is it possible to 
determine the questions of right or wrong between the States 
on any other basis? It cannot be done. There is no evading 
this conclusion. 

But the Constitution is with the South. Therefore, Mr. 
Adams, like all other defenders of the great war, must seek 
another basis. He approaches it by degrees, and with the cun- 
ning of the serpent that beguiled Eve. Witness these next 
words of his: "The change (made by the Constitution) was 
political and far-reaching; but it produced no immediate effect 
on the feelings of the people." As well say that the Union of 
the crowns of Scotland and England immediately broke up the 
Scotch clanship. It did break it up, but the process was con- 
tinued through one hundred and fifty years. The Union be- 
came an organic fact in 1707; but as the events of forty years 
later showed, the consequences of the Union no Campbell or 
Cameron foresaw. So with us in 1788, allegiance to the States 
had only a few years before proved stronger than allegiance to 
the Crown or to the Confederation, and no one then was foolish 
enough to suppose that the executive of the Union "would 
dare to enforce a law against the wishes of a sovereign and in- 
dependent State ! the very idea was 'preposterous.' " May his 
allies forgive him for this admission ! 



256 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

He had just read these words of Senator Maclay of Pennsyl- 
vania written in his journal on the 22d of March, 1790, "Is it 
to be expected that a federal law passed directly against the 
sense of a whole State will ever be executed in that State?" He 
had also just read these other words, giving as his reference, 
"Gordy's Political Parties in the U. S., Vol. 1, pp. 203-341:" 
"That this new Government, this upstart of yesterday, had the 
power to interpose its edict on unwilling States was a political 
solecism to which they could in no wise assent." These are 
facts that stand out on the plain of history like mountains. It 
is impossible for them to escape the eye of the historian. They 
must, they will be recognized through all time. 

May we not now ask what analogy is there between the Union 
of Scotland and England in 1707, and the Union of the States 
in 1788? Was not the former the result of royal intrigue and 
marriage? Did the submissive people have any voice in it at 
all? On the other hand, was not the Union of the American 
States the result of the decision of the free, independent, sov- 
ereign people of "sovereign independent States?" (Adams). In 
the former case the sovereigns were exclusively royal and de- 
spotic; in the latter the sovereigns were exclusively the free 
and sovereign people of the States. 

But doubtless Mr. Adams is not greatly concerned about the 
analogy between the two Unions. It may not appear on the 
surface, but he places emphasis distinctly on the time required 
for the Scotch clanship to die. Does he not say in positive 
terms: "It did break it up; but the process was continuous 
through one hundred and fifty years?" If true, what signifi- 
cance have these words in this connection? Do they not clearly 
signify a search for a base, other than the Constitution, on which 
to determine the question of right and justice between the two 
sections? What means this strange claim that just as the Scotch 
clanship died out in a century and a half so State allegiance 
died out in less than three-fourths of a century Has he sus- 
tained his assertions as to State-allegiance by a single fact? Do 
not all know that State allegiance had not been transferred to the 
Federal Government in 1860? Do not all know that the stronger 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 257 

the allegiance to the State the stronger is the allegiance to the 
Federal Government? Do not all know it was the South's strong 
allegiance to her State Governments with a devotion, judged by 
her heroism and sacrifices in the Sixties, unparalleled in the his- 
tory of the world? It is the want of allegiance to the States that 
set aside the Constitution and supplanted it with a mere fiction. 
Stripped of its verbiage and elegant phrases how does his argu- 
ment appear? Here it is: The Union of Scotland and Eng- 
land broke up the Scotch Clanship in less than a century and 
a half. Therefore, the Union of the American States broke up 
the allegiance to these States in less time than three-quarters of 
a century. Was anything ever more absurd? 

After quoting Senator Maclay's declaration, "That this new 
Government, this Upstart of yesterday, had the power to impose 
its edicts on unwilling States was a political solecism to which 
they could, in no wise, assent," the very next words of Mr. 
Adams are strong endorsement of these utterances. They are 
these : 

"I am sure all this was so in 1788. I am very confident it 
remained so until 1815. I fully believe it was so, though in less 
degree, until at least 1830. A generation of men born in the 
Union had then grown up, supplanting the generations born and 
brought up in the States. Steam and electricity had not yet 
begun their cementing influence, but time, sentiment, tradition — 
more and most of all, the intense feeling excited North and 
South by our naval successes under the National flag in the War 
of 1812 — had in 1815 in large part done their work. The sense 
of ultimate allegiance was surely though slowly as insensibly 
shifting from the particular and gravitating to the general — from 
the State to the Union. It was not a question of law, or of the 
intent of the fathers^ or of the true construction of a written in- 
.ftrument; for on that vital point the Constitution was silent." 
Hear! Hear!! Hear!!! 

We have the admission of Mr. Adams that from 1788 to 1830 
the people had not transferred their allegiance and afifection from 
their respective State Governments to the Federal Government. 
This is followed by the very strange declaration that during a 



258 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

new generation they did, in some way, so transfer their allegi- 
ance and affection. How? "Through slowly and insensibly shift- 
ing from the particular and gravitating to the general — from the 
State to the Union." In a Republic like ours can the nature 
of the Government be changed without legal process? This is 
peculiarly a Government of law. It was founded on law. It 
was organized by law. All its functions are defined by law, 
and all its acts are based on law. It is the proud boast of this 
great American Republic that it does nothing without the author- 
ity of law. Yet we are told of a mysterious "insensibly shifting" 
and "gravitating" change that "did its work." The sympathy 
of the future generations will not be for the leaders who inau- 
gurated the great War in 1861, but for their descendants who 
will meet with "so many insurmountable difficulties" in defend- 
ing the acts of their ancestors. 

Mr. Adams has at last revealed to us that wonderfully strange 
base, that, in his estimation, supplanted the Constitution. He 
has circled around it like an eagle in search of its prey. Here 
it is : "A generation born in the Union had then grown up 
supplanting the generation born and brought up in the States, 
(also in the Union). Steam and electricity had not yet begun 
their cementing influence; but time, sentiment and tradition — 
more and most of all, the intense feeling excited in the North 
and South by our naval successes under the national flag in the 
War of 1813 — had in 1815, in large part, done their work." 

The New Basis, then, is a New Generation. It has been 
approached by entangling complications, by facts inapplicable, 
by facts false, and finally by assertions unsustained. If such 
logic be admissable, the best and purest Government of earth 
can be condemned. Yea, it will undermine the very ethics of 
Holy Writ. What well-established government has not had its 
new generations ! What thousands of new generations have not 
come and gone since the days of Moses ! 

Besides, is it to be supposed that the Constitution was made 
for just one generation? Was it not made for the generations 
yet unborn as well as for the generation of 1788? Again, was 
not the Constitution made so flexible that it could be adapted to 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 259 

the conditions of any future generation? Does it not prescribe 
the method by which it can be adapted to the conditions of any 
age, even though it be a "steam" or an "electric" age? That 
method is not by the fiction of a magical New Generation, but 
by the formal consent of three-fourths of the States — a definite 
and sure method, not a most indefinite method, shrouded in un- 
certainty and revolution. 

Still again, this New Generation basis is lawlessness and an- 
archy, as testified by these words of Mr. Adams : "It was not 
a question of law, or of the intent of the fathers, or the true con- 
struction of a written instrument." Does not this exclude all 
appeal to law? Does it not deny all appeal to justice by ex- 
cluding the intent of the framers of the Constitution? Does 
it not forbid all legal tribunals by excluding "the true construc- 
tion of the written Constitution?" This is not only anarchy, 
but also autocratic and despotic. 

While denying it was a question of law, he yet ostensibly ap- 
peals to law in these words: "For on that vital point, the Con- 
stitution was silent — wisely, and as I hold it, intentionally si- 
lent." Does not Mr. Adams know that these words constitute a 
dagger in his own hand that cuts the warp and woof of his 
argument? The silence of the Constitution is language of deep- 
est import and clearest meaning. To prove this we have but 
to quote the Constitution, thus: "The powers not delegated to 
the United States by the Consitution, nor prohibited by it to 
the States, are reserved to the State respectively or to the peo- 
ple." 

By far the greater part of the Constitution is its silence. That 
greater part belongs to the States, and declares their reserved 
rights. Herein consists its peculiarity. The conditions which 
called it into being demanded a peculiar Constitution — one like 
no other. What a State Constitution does not forbid by its si- 
lence, the Legislature, in its discretion, can do. What the Con- 
stitution of the United States does not forbid by its silence Con- 
gress cannot do. All the powers of the United States are 
enumerated and specified by the Constitution. It is a Govern- 
ment walled in by specifications and limitations. It is the agent 



2fi0 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of its creators, the States, with definite instruction, within which 
it has liberty, beyond which it has no Hberty. 

"On that vital point," declares Mr. Adams, "the Constitu- 
tion was silent." Therefore, the United States had nothing to 
do with that vital point. It belonged to the States. What then 
was that vital point? Why, simply this: "Whether it was 'a 
question of law" — "a true construction of the Constitution," 
or some fictitious substitute for this written instrument. That 
the Constitution was silent on such a question as this is not to 
be wondered at. Can it be possible that the States met in 
convention, framed and signed the Compact among themselves, 
and yet did not regard that compact as a law to themselves? 
Did ynot the States, ratifying it, agree to abide by it? If they 
agreed to abide by it, was it not to them "a question of law?" 
And if by law, was it not by the "true construction of a writ- 
ten instrument?" And if by a true construction of the Compact, 
could they exclude "the untent of its framers?" What absurdi- 
ties does not a defenseless position breed? 

Let us consider for a moment what would be the result if 
the true construction of the Constitution should be rejected. 
Every officer in the United States Government is sworn to abide 
by the Constitution, from the President down to the lowest. 
Every State officer from the Governor down to the lowest is 
sworn to abide by the same written instrument. If the true con- 
struction can be set aside and a false construction substituted, 
tell us what will be the result? The true construction can be 
but one, but false constructions may be as many as the stars 
that adorn the blue vault of heaven. The true construction 
means rmion and consistency, false constructions, disunion and 
anarchy. Who were the true disunionists and anarchists in the 
Sixties? 

We quote further from Mr. Adams: "I have already refer- 
red to the academic address I, some months ago, had occasion 
to deliver. In response to it I received quite a number of let- 
ters, one of which, bearing on this point, seemed very notable. 
It was from the president of an historic Virginia College, who 
himself bears an historic name. In the address alluded to, I had 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 261 

said, 'However it may have been in 1788, in 1860 a nation had 
grown into existence.' This I take to be indisputable. In no 
way denying the fact, my correspondent, quoting the words I 
have given, thus wrote: 'But is it not true that this nationality 
was after all a Northern Nationality? Did the South share 
in it to any extent? On the contrary, the Confederate charac- 
ter of the Union was more strongly impressed upon the South 
in 1860, than in 1788. So that it may be more truly said that 
the Secessionist's recourse in 1861 was to a peaceable separa- 
tion, and not to the sword. If the Union, and its national char- 
acter reached out after the South, must not the responsibility 
for the use of the sword be visited upon the North and not 
upon the South ? Both the North and the South started out 
from the same Constitutional standpoint of secession ; but, while 
the South adhered to the same idea, the North fused into a Na- 
tion, which, in 1861, determined to conquer the other and con- 
servative part. That the South had ever suffered nationality 
in spirit or in fact, previous to 1861, I think your address 
clearly disproves." 

It is thus seen that Mr. Adams asserts "as an indisputable 
fact" that "in 1860 a nation had grown into existence," and that 
the Virginia College President did not deny it. We think he 
did deny it by implication, if not in express terms. If the Vir- 
ginian did not dispute the proposition, we do, and demand the 
proof that a nation had grown into existence in 1860. If true, 
it had its beginning in 1860, for nothing can exist before it 
begins to exist. But, in fact, a Government, known as the 
United States, was in existence at that time and in full opera- 
tion. Were there two Governments in this country at that time? 
By what name was this new nation called? What were its limits 
as to territory? What was its nature? Did it usurp the Govern- 
ment of the United States? If so, when and how? Was such 
a Government actually known at all in 1860? Had any one 
ever dreamed of such a Government? If not we have here the 
strangest phenomenon of all the strange phenomena in all the 
ages, viz : A nation in existence and inaugurating the greatest 
War of Modern Times, and fighting it to a finish, and yet un- 



262 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

known, unheard of, undreamed of ! When, then, did this nation 
exist? Surely not before it was heard of. Not till the mighty 
war with all its carnage had ended, and not then till the insur- 
mountable task of satisfactorily explaining its cause and justify- 
ing its terrible destruction of human life rose stupendously on 
the vision of its originators. How then did it exist ? In reality ? 
No ; simply in the brain — in the imagination ! There never was 
such a nation, except as a mere fiction; and this fiction would 
not have been could a better reason of defense have been found. 
The future historian will sweep away these cobwebs of a day 
and substitute in their stead the fact of the South's unyielding 
devotion to the Constitution. He will wreath her brow with the 
emblems of immortal glory. He will proclaim hers the land of 
patriotic heroes, the truest, the bravest, the best; and her hero- 
ines the most devoted, the most self-sacrificing, the purest, the 
loveliest, the sweetest — worthy of the best soldiers that ever 
rushed to the onset amid the thunders of the battle, 

A monument was erected in 1788 to the Southern heroes and 
heroines of the sixties. That monument is the American Consti- 
tution. We do not refer to the parchment on which it is writ- 
ten, but to its immortal principles of human liberty and human 
rights. To the true Southerner its summit kisses the blue vault 
of heaven, and its broad base reaches North and South from 
the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and East and West 
touches both oceans. So long as the principles of the American 
Constitution shall be revered the valor and patriotism of the 
South will live in the affections of mankind. 

What is Mr. Adams' reply to the solid reasoning of the Vir- 
ginian? He begins: "In some of the conclusions in this extract 
from the letter of my Virginian correspondent it is needless to 
say I do not agree. I do not believe in the right of secession 
as an original standpoint from which, in 1788, the North and 
South started out." Yet we have already quoted Mr. Adams 
as saying, in regard to whether allegiance is due to the State 
or the Union, "I do not think the answer admits of doubt. If put 
m 1788, or indeed at any time anterior to 1825, the immediate 
reply of nine men out of ten in the Northern States, and ninety- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 263 

nine out of a hundred in the Southern States, would have been 
as between the Union and the States, ultimate allegiance is due 
to the State." "If that does not mean the right of secession 
was the original standpoint what does it mean? Have we not 
also shown that he quoted Senator Maclay, of Pennsylvania, as 
saying on the 22d of March, 1790, "Is it to be expected that a 
Federal law passed directly against the sense of a whole State 
will ever be executed in that State?" Have we, not also shown 
that Mr. Adams quotes Gordy as saying, "That this new Gov- 
ernment, this upstart of yesterday, had the power to impose its 
edicts on unwilling States was a political solecism to which they 
could in no wise assent?" If these quotations do not teach "the 
right of secession as an original standpoint from which, in 1788, 
the North and South started out," what do they teach? Is 
it possible that the States believed they could not withdraw from 
a Government, which, in comparison with their own, was "a 
mere upstart of a day?" 

Another expression of Mr. Adams in reply is this : "I do not 
believe a peaceable secession as a possibility was ever contem- 
plated by any one." Surely, he must have read of the Hartford 
Convention in which every voice proclaimed a peaceable seces- 
sion possible. It met in 1814, and such is its fame that it is on 
every school boy's lip. Did he ever read "The Life of Cabot" 
in which Col. Pickering, advocating the secession of the New 
England States, is reported as saying: "That this (a separation) 
can be accomplished without shedding one drop of blood I have 
little doubt." (p. 338). 

When Mr. Pickering uttered these words the two sections 
were about equal in population. We therefore assert upon the 
authority of Pickering and history that a peaceable secession was 
possible when the two sections were equal in population and ma- 
terial wealth. We also assert that such a secession was possible 
at any period anterior to the time the population of the South 
exceeded that of the North. We also declare that such a seces- 
sion was possible at any time subsequent when the population 
of the North did not exceed that of the South to any very great 
extent. We also assert, as an indisputable proposition, that the se- 



264 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

cession of the eleven Southern States would have been a peace- 
able withdrawal from the Union in 18G0-61, had not the North 
far outnumbered the South in population, in war materials and 
other advantages, including that of being in possession of the 
Government, 

His third reply is the unsustained and unsustainable assertion 
"that the essential principle of the Constitution was a divided 
sovereio'nty, to which we have called attention in the previous 
chapter. In that chapter we think we have shown with mathe- 
miatical conclusiveness that the Constitution was based on the 
principle of the divided powers of sovereignty, and not on a 
divided sovereignty. But suppose a divided sovereignty to be a 
possibility, what advantage would it give the North in this dis- 
cussion? None, whatever. Mr. Adams admits this in these 
words: "Though I say, Mr. Lodge and Prof. Smith may be 
wrong, yet whether they were wrong or right does not affect 
the proposition that from 1788 to 1861, in case of a direct and 
insolvable issue between the sovereign States and Sovereign 
Nation, every man was not only free to decide but had to decide 
the question of ultimate allegiance for himself; and whichever 
way he decided, he was right. The Constitution gave him two 
masters. Both he could not serve; and the average man decid- 
ed which to serve in the light of sentiment, tradition, and en- 
vironment." He, therefore, on this point abandons the Con- 
stitution to gain nothing. Yet this argument is advanced in 
justification of the War. 

He next admits the Virginia College President is right "on 
the main issue," thus : "But on the main issue — the essential point 
involved in the extract from his letter — the writer was, I think, 
right. Previous to 1861 the South did not undergo nationaliza- 
tion, to the same extent, in any event, as the North. And yet 
why did it not?" 

This question introduces another evasion of the Constitution. 
The main issue between the North and the South has been ad- 
mitted to be in favor of the latter. The Constitution is there- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 265 

fore abandoned and Fate is invoked to come to his rescue. He 
had previously quoted these lines of Tennyson : 

"The drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid in the veil. 

Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them 
about ? 
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is wide. 
We are puppets, Man in his pride and Beauty fair in her flower ; 
Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at 
a game 
That pushes us off from the board and others ever succeed." 

"And why did it not?" is thus answered! Again Tennyson's 
unseen hand at a game — a game in which we are "puppets." 
But after all what is that unseen hand? And how did it mani- 
fest itself in our national life during the three-fourths of a cen- 
tury between 1788 and 1861? That "unseen hand," theologi- 
cally known as "an inscrutible providence." I take to be noth- 
ing more nor less than those national, social, industrial and 
political conditions, domestic and public, which, making our en- 
vironment, mould our destiny with no very great regard for 
our plans, our hopes, our traditions, or our aspirations." Thus 
all the wrongs done to an abandoned Constitution, all the wrongs 
suffered by the South are justified by the irrevocable decrees 
of Fate, as if Fate, so-called relieved man of all responsibility. 
We knew Lincoln was a fatalist, but we had not suspected Mr. 
Adams and other leading spirits as being fatalists of the North. 
This question is not to be determined by the doctrine of fatal- 
ism. The descendants of the Northern heroes must learn the 
sad fact that their gallant fathers fought for a cause, defense- 
less in the light of the American Constitution. They must con- 
sole themselves, if at all, with the fact that the country is pros- 
perous in spite of the wrongs to the Constitution and to the 
great loyal Southern section. 

We admit the universal proposition: "Known unto God are 
all things from the beginning." We also admit, "his name 
is 'I am,' or One Eternal Now. We also admit another proposi- 
tion, equally as indisputable, viz. : "Man is a responsible being." 



261) RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

The same testimony that proves we Hve proves with equal cer- 
tainty that we are responsible beings. We know we live be- 
cause we are conscious of the fact, and we have no other evi- 
dence that we do live. We know that we are responsible be- 
ings because we are conscious of the fact. If we deny the tes- 
timony of consciousness in the one case we must deny it in the 
other. But we cannot deny we live. Therefore, we cannot deny 
we are responsible beings. 

"Can we by searching find out God?" We see "his handy 
work in the heavens." We see his thousands of suns to which 
Tennyson refers. But who has ever answered the childs' ques- 
tion, "Who made God?" Both Natural and Revealed Religion 
teach us that he is absolutely infinite in all his attributes. If 
there is one thing he does not know he lacks that much of being 
absolutely infinite in knowledge. If there is one thing he can- 
not do he lacks that much of being infinite in power. If there 
be one thing he does not know or one thing he cannot do, it 
would result in the wreck of the universe. As the natural eye 
is turned toward the sky at night we seem to be in the midst 
of a hemisphere, all bedecked with stars. Why? Because it is 
the limit of our vision, and that limit is the same in every direc- 
tion. When the astronomer turns his telescope to the heavens he 
too sees what appears to be a hemisphere, all bedecked with 
stars, but of vaster proportions. But when God looks out in 
the same direction there is but one vast stretch of vision, un- 
limited and illimitable. To use a simpler illustration : When 
man looks along two parallel lines, they seem to come in con- 
tact at a certain distance. But when God looks at them they 
run the same parallel lines all the way. Thus it is when we 
look at man's responsibility and God's absolute knowledge 
they seem to come in contact. When God looks at them 
they run on in grand parallelism forever. We therefore 
conclude that useless and insignificant are these words of Mr. 
Adams: "Throughout Fate, the inevitable, 'the unseen hand' 
are everywhere now apparent," so far, at least, as relieving the 
North from responsibility as to the clash of arms, the wreck of 
hopes and the destruction of life and property is concerned. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 267 

What has Mr. Adams admitted? Here it is in his own plain 
words : "The essential point involved in the extract of his let- 
ter" — that of the college president — viz : "The Confederate char- 
acter of the Union, was more strongly impressed upon the South 
in 1861 than in 1788;" that is, instead of being "nationalized," 
so-called, it was more strongly Confederate in character than 
ever during the existence of the Union — or less nationalized. 
Granting this to be true, as Mr. Adams has done, it is impossi- 
ble to evade the conclusion of the Virginian, viz. : "If the 
North was really the only national part of the Union, and its 
national character reached out after the South, must not the re- 
sponsibility for the use of the sword be visited upon the North 
and not on the South?" Thus the College President turns the 
enemy's own gun upon themselves. 

Were it not that the great name of Webster has been brought 
into this discussion in support of the false theory of national- 
ization we would rest the case, on this phase of the argument, 
right here. As The Representative of New Hampshire in Con- 
gress, Mr. Webster on the 9th of December, 1814, the law for 
compulsory army and military service being under consideration, 
said: "The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and ille- 
gal ought to be prevented, by a resort to other measures which 
are both constitutional and legal. It will be the solemn duty 
of the State Government to protect their own authority over 
their own Militia, and to interpose between their citizens and ar- 
bitrary power. These are among the objects for which State 
Governments exist; and their highest obligations bind them to 
the preservation of their own rights and the liberties of their 
people. I express these sentiments here, sir, because I shall ex- 
press them to my constituents. Both they and myself live under 
a Constitution, which teaches us that the doctrine of non-resis- 
tance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, 
and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind. With 
the same earnestness with which I now exhort you to forbear 
from these measures, I shall exhort them to exercise their un- 
questionable right of providing for the security of their own 
liberties." (C. H. Vantine : The Letters of Daniel Webster 



2f)S RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

p. G7). Never did Calhoun utter stronger States-right senti- 
ments than these. 

In support of his imaginary theory of nationaHzation, Mr. 
Adams quotes similar sentiments from the address of Governor 
Jonathan Trumbull to the Legislature of Connecticut, in special 
session, Feb. 23, 1809, as follows: "Whenever our National Leg- 
islature is led to overleap the prescribed bounds of their Con- 
stitutional powers, on the State Legislatures, in great emergen- 
cies, devolves the arduous task — it is their right — it becomes 
their duty, to interpose their protecting shield between the right 
and Hberty of the people, and the assumed power of the Gen- 
eral Government." Along the same line he quotes from the 
resolutions of the Hartford Convention, saying, "They follow 
closely Madison's own language in draughting the Virginia res- 
olutions of 1798," these words: "The mode and the energy of 
the opposition should always conform to the nature of the vio- 
lation, the intention of its authors, the extent of the injury in- 
flicted, the determination manifested to persist in it, and the 
danger of delay. But in case of deliberate, dangerous, and pal- 
pable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty 
of a State, and liberties of the people, it is not only the right 
but the duty of such a State to interpose its authority for their 
protection in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When 
emergencies occur which are beyond the reach of the judicial tri- 
bunals, or too pressing to admit of delay incident to their forms. 
States which have no common umpire must be their own judges, 
and execute their own decisions." Stronger and clearer States- 
right sentiments were never uttered by the most rabid secession- 
ists. Why does Mr. Adams quote these States-rights sentiments 
from such sources? Because he thinks they form the basis for 
a superb argument in behalf of nationalization, so called. 

He next quotes as if triumphantly, these words of Webster in 
reply to Hayne : "I do not hold that the Hartford Convention 
was pardonable even to the extent of the gentlemen's admission, 
if its objects were really such as have been imputed to it." Mr. 
Adams comments : "It is somewhat curious to consider what 
wnnLl have been the attitude of the Massachusetts Senator, if, 
after uttering these words, the Senator from South Carolina had 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 269 

been able to confront him with his speech fifteen years previous 
in the other hall of the Capitol. But 

'Manners with fortune's humors turn with climes, 
Tenets with books, and principles with times.' " 

We now propose to turn the tables on this fatalist. If a change 
of opinion during fifteen years is proof that Webster had national- 
ized, what shall be said of him when nine years later, in January, 
1839, — six years after the Webster-Calhoun discussion in the 
Senate, — before the Supreme Court of the United States in the 
case of the Bank of Augusta vs. Earle, he returned to first princi- 
ples, that is to Constitutional principles? He then and there 
spoke as follows : "But it is argued, that though this law of 
comity exists between independent nations, it does not exist be- 
tween the States of the Union. That argument appears to have 
been the foundation of the judgment of the court below. 

"In respect to this law of comity, it is said, States are not 
nations ; they have no National Sovereignty ; a sort of residuum 
of sovereignty is all that remains to them. The National Sov- 
ereignty, it is said, is conferred on this Government, and part 
of the municipal sovereignty. The rest of the municipal sovereign- 
ty belongs to the States. Notwithstanding the respect which 
I entertain for the learned judge, who presided in that court, I 
cannot follow in the train of his argument. I can make no 
diagram, such as this, of the partition of National character 
between the States and General Governments. I cannot map it 
out, and say, so far is National and so far is municipal ; and 
here is the exact line where the one begins and the other ends. 
We have no second La Place, and we never shall have, with 
his Mechanique Politique, able to define and describe the orbit 
of each sphere in our political system with such exact mathe- 
matical precision. There is no such thing as arranging these 
Governments of ours by the laws of gravitation, so that they 
will be sure to go on forever without infringing. These insti- 
tutions are practical, admirable, glorious, bles&ed creations. Still 
they were when created, experimental institutictfis ; and if the 
Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States 
had set down in it certain general definitions of power, such 



270 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

as have been alleged, in the argument of this case, and stopped 
there, I verily believe that in the course of fifty years which 
have since elapsed, this Government would never have gone 
into operation. 

"Suppose the Constitution had said, in terms after the lan- 
guage of the court below — all National Sovereignty shall belong 
to the United States ; all municipal sovereignty to the several 
States. I will say, that however clear, however distinct such 
a definition may appear to those who use it, the employment of 
it, in the Constitution, could only have led to utter confusion 
and uncertainty. I am not prepared to say that the States 
have no National Sovereignty. The laws of some of the States 
— Maryland and Virginia, for instance — provide punishment for 
treason. The power thus exercised is certainly, not municipal. 
Virginia has a law of alienage ; that is, a power exercised against 
a foreign nation. Does not the question necessarily arise, when 
a power is exercised concerning an alien enemy — enemy to 
whom? The law of escheat, which exists in all the States, is 
also the exercise of a Great Sovereign Power. 

"The term Sovereignty does not occur in the Constitution 
at all. The Constitution treats States as States, and the United 
States as the United States, and by careful enumeration, declares 
all the powers that are granted belong to the United States, and 
all the rest are reserved to the States. If we pursue to the ex- 
treme point, the powers granted, and the powers reserved, the 
powers of the General and State Governments will be found, 
and it is to be feared, infringing and in conflict. Our hope is 
that the prudence and partriotism of "the States, and the wis- 
dom of the Government, will prevent that catastrophe. For 
myself, I will pursue the advice of the court in Deveaux's case; 
I will avoid nice metaphysical substitutes, and all useless 
theories ; I will keep my feet out of the traps of general definition ; 
T will keep my feet out of all traps ; I will keep to things as 
they are, and go on further to inquire what might be, if they 
were not what they are. The States of the Union, as States, 
are subject to all the voluntary and customary laws of nations." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 271 

Talk about your political cements, such as the steam, whose 
expulsive power gives to the volcano its crater ; and that of 
electricity, whose driving force rends the giant of the forest; 
and as that of the war in 1812 with its Hartford Convention. 
But there is no political cement, worthy the name, except that of 
the American Constitution. We have seen Webster in the House 
of Representatives the bold and able defender of the Constitu- 
tion, as the only hope for the rights and independence of the 
States. We have seen him fifteen years later in a heated debate 
with Hayne in the United States Senate,, and have heard him de- 
clare, "I do not hold that the Hartford Convention is pardon- 
able." We have seen these words construed to mean that he 
was nationalized, that he had abandoned the Constitution. Nine 
years still later, we have seen him standing before the August 
tribunal of the United States Supreme Court. The lights of 
fifty-six summers encircles his brow. He is in the prime of 
life, and in full possession of the powers of his giant intellect. 
He is unrobed of all false logic, and stands erect the most 
stately form in all America, the champion of the Constitution. 
He speaks : "I am not prepared to say the States have no Na- 
tional Sovereignty." Then in concise terms his next words give 
the proof: "The laws of some of the States — Maryland and 
Virginia, for instance — provide punishment for treason. The 
power thus exercised is certainly not municipal. Virginia has 
a law of alienage ; that is a power exercised against a foreign 
nation. Does not the question necessarily arise, when a power 
is exercised concerning an alien enemy — enemy to whom? The 
law of escheat which exists in all the States, is also the exercise 
of a great Sovereign power." 

Pausing here and earnestly gazing into the face of each mem- 
ber of that dignified tribunal, his next words are uttered with 
deliberation and emphasis : "The term Sovereignty does not 
occur in the Constitution at all. The Constitution treats States 
as States and the United States as the United States," that is 
the Constitution treats States as Nations, and the United States 
as Untied States, or United Nations. 



272 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

How pitiful is nationalization in the presence of this logic! 
Nationalization, a usurper of the Constitution, and yet a mere 
imaginary public opinion, unreal, unsupported, but not unassert- 
ed, "signifying things different at different times and in different 
places" ! What a substitute for the Constitution I What a justi- 
fication for the Great War! 

Along the line of this inexorable argument, the Supreme Court 
rendered its decision. Here it is in part : "It has, however, been 
supposed that the rules of comity between foreign Nations do 
not apply to the States of this Union ; that they extend to one 
another no other rights than those which are given by the Con- 
sitution of the United States ; and that the courts of the General 
Government are not at liberty to presume, in the absence of all 
legislation on the subject, that a State has adopted the comity 
of Nations toward the other States, as a part of its jurisprudence 
or that it acknowledges any right but those which are secured 
by the Constitution of the United States. The court thinks other- 
wise. The intimate Union of these States, as members of the 
same great political family ; the deep and vital interests which 
bind them so closely together ; should lead us, in the absence of 
proof to the contrary, to presume a greater degree of comity and 
friendship, and kindness toward one another, than we should be 
authorized to presume between foreign Nations. And when 
(without doubt it must occasionally happen) the interest or pol- 
icy of any State requires it to restrict the rule, it has but to de- 
clare its will, and the legal presumption is at once at an end. 
But until this is done, upon what grounds could this court re- 
fuse to administer the law of international comity between these 
States? They are Sovereign States, and the history of the past, 
and the events which are daily occurring, furnish the strongest 
evidence that they have adopted toward each other the laws of 
comity in their fullest extent. 

"But it cannot be necessary to pursue the argument further. 
We think it is well settled, that by the law oi comity among 
Nations, a corporation created by one Sovereignty is permitted 
to make contracts in another, and to sue in its courts; and that 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 273 

the same law of comity prevails among the several Sovereignties 
of this Union." 

Talk about your fictitious "Nationalization" ! It is certain this 
court was not nationalized. It is certain "the Sovereign States" 
were not. It is certain there would have been no such term 
known to American politics had the Constitution authorized the 
aggressions of the North in the Sixties. When Webster stood 
before that august tribunal no such term was on the lips of an 
American statesman. It is only one of the many illegal children 
born of necessity since the War. 

That Webster's views had undergone a complete change since 
his debates with Hayne and Calhoun is further seen in his cele- 
brated letter to the Barings of London in 1838. It is as follows : 

"Your first inquiry is, 'whether the Legislature of one of the 
States has legal and Constitutional power to contract loans at 
home and abroad.' 

"To this I answer that the Legislature of a State has such 
power ; and how any doubt could have arisen on this point is dif- 
ficult for me to conceive. Every State is an independent, sover- 
eign, political community, except in so far as certain powers, 
which it might otherwise have exercised, have been conferred 
on a General Government, established under a written Constitu- 
tion, and exerting its authority over the people of all the States. 
This General Government is a limited Government. Its powers 
are specified and enumerated. All powers not conferred upon 
it remain with the States and with the people. The State Legis- 
latures, on the other hand, possess all usual and extraordinary 
powers of Government, subject to any limitations which may be 
imposed by their own Constitutions, and, with the exception, as 
I have said, of the operation on those powers of the Constitution 
of the United States. 

"The security for State loans is the plighted faith of the State, 
as a political comanunity. It rests on the same basis as other 
contracts with established governments — the same basis, for ex- 
ample, as loans made in the United States under the authority 
of Congress; that is to say, the good faith of the Government 
making the loan, and its ability to fulfil its engagements. 



274 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"It has been said the States cannot be sued on these bonds. 
But neither could the United States be sued, nor, as I suppose, 
the Crown of England in a like case. Nor would the power of 
suing, probably, give the creditor any substantial additional se- 
curity. The solemn obligations of a Government, arising on 
its own acknowledged bond, would not be enhanced by a judg- 
ment rendered on such a bond. It either could not, or would not, 
make provision for paying the bond, it is not probable that it 
could and would make provision for satisfying the judgment." 
(Nile's National Register, Vol. 57, pp 273-41.) 

Here is one of the clearest expositions of the nature of the 
United States Government ever written. The language is sim- 
plicity itself. It is as clear as simple. In it Mr. Webster de- 
clares that "every State is an independent, sovereign, political 
community" ; and that "the General Government is a limited Gov- 
ernment," "its powers" being "specified and enumerated." He 
is the main witness of Charles Francis Adams and Francis New- 
ton Thorpe. Therefore they can not discard his testimony. 

As early as 1803 Judge Tucker in his edition of Blackstone 
utters similar statements in these words : "The Federal Govern- 
ment, then, appears to be the organ through which the United 
Republics communicate with foreign Nations, and with each oth- 
er. Their submission to its operation is vokmtary ; its councils, 
its engagements, its authority, is an emanation from theirs, not 
a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in 
which they have been swallowed up. Each is still a perfect 
State, still Sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should 
occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, 
to the most unlimited extent. But until the time shall arrive 
when the occasion requires a resumption of the rights of Sover- 
eignty by the several States (and far be that period removed 
when it shall happen) the exercise of the rights of Sovereignty 
by the States individually is wholly suspended, or discontinued, 
in the cases before mentioned; nor can that suspension ever be 
removed, so long as the present Constitution remains unchanged, 
but by the dissolution of the bonds of the Union ; an event which 
no good or wise administration will ever hazard." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 275 

When the bill for the purchase of Louisiana was before Con- 
gress Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, opposed it on the ground 
that it would disturb the balance of power east of the Mississ- 
ippi and render New England secondary as to influence in pub- 
lic aflfairs. He said in the House on the 11th of January, 1811: 
"The principle of the bill materially affects the liberties and 
rights of the whole people of the United States. To me it ap- 
pears that it would justify a revolution in this country, and that 

in no great length of time it may produce one I am 

compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion,that, if thi> bill 
passes, the bonds of this Union are, virtually, dissolved ; that 
the States which compose it are free from their moral obliga- 
tions, and that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the 
duty of some, to be prepared definitelv for a separation ; amicably, 
if they can; violently, if they must." 

Why does Quincy declare the right of secession here? Be- 
cause with Tucker and Webster and Hamilton and Madison and 
Jefferson and all of the great political luminaries of the early 
days of this Republic, the Union was regarded as a compact 
among the States, an organ through which the United Republics 
communicate with foreign Nations and with each other, and 
through which the States transact business of common interest 
to all. Hence he speaks of the Compact as a moral obligation, 
and because voluntarily made, may be voluntarily annulled. 

In entering into this Compact the States were very cautious 
for they were very jealous of their rights as States. After the 
Declaration of Independence they were bound to each other sim- 
ply by mutual interests and mutual dangers. Without a general 
government they fought to a successful issue the greatest of 
world powers. It was not till March 1781, only a few months 
before the close of the war, the last State ratified the Articles of 
the Confederation, They had hesitated, they had squabbled for 
five years. And yet the Confederation was a mere league of 
States with inadequate powers having but little trace of Nation- 
ality. 

When a more perfect Union was realized to be a necessity for 
their mutual benefit, the States met in Convention in Philadel- 



276 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

phia and drew up a new Compact known as the Federal Consti- 
tution. It was submitted to the States for their ratification. Again 
they were jealous and cautious. In some quarters it met with 
violent opposition. In the discussion it was claimed by some 
that no provision was expressly made for the secession of a 
State. This objection was successfully met by the reply that 
"no such provision was necessary as each State had the inherent 
right to withdraw from the Compact," just as it had the inherent 
right to enter into it. It was also opposed by some because it 
made no provision to prevent the abolition of slavery. This also 
was declared not to be necessary because the United States could 
exercise no authority not specifically granted by the Constitution, 
To remove all doubt as to the right of a State to secede three 
of the thirteen States expressly reserved that right in their ordi- 
nance of ratification. These States were Virginia, New York 
and Rhode Island. The State of Virginia in her ordinance of 
ratification used these memorable words : "The delegates do 
declare and make known that the powers granted under the Con- 
stitution, being derived from the people of the United States, 
may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted 
to their injury or oppression." 

New York in her ratifying ordinance reserved the right to 
secede in these words : "The powers of Government may be 
resumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to 
their happiness." 

Rhode Island waited till the 29th day of May, 1790, more than 
one year after the inauguration of Washington, and then ratified 
the Constitution, reserving the right to secede in the identical 
words used by New York, viz: "The powers of Government 
may be resumed by the people whenever it shall become neces- 
sary to their happiness." 

Whatever rights belonged to these three States belonged to 
all. Otherwise the States had entered into a Compact on un- 
equal terms. But they did not enter the Compact on unequal 
terms. Therefore the rights of these three States were the 
rights of the thirteen. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 277 

It is impossible for truth and facts to weave a stronger argu- 
ment in behalf of any right than they have woven in regard to 
the right of the States to withdraw from the Union anterior to 
the war. Therefore the South, in exercising this right in ISfiO- 
61, was not in rebellion. If not in rebellion she was not respon- 
sible for the Great War. 



CHAPTER XX. 

FOURTEEN SUBSTITUTES FOR THE CON- 
STITUTION GROUPED. 

1. A Pious Fraud. 2. "We, the People." 3. A Divided 
Sovereignty. 4. "The Union Much Older than the Constitu- 
tion." 5. A Higher Law. 6. An Unwritten Constitution. 
7. A Common Law. 8. The Federal Government an Organic 
Growth. 9. The Silence of the Constitution. 10. The Wrong 
of Slavery. 11, A Party Platform. 12. Indifference of For- 
eign Immigrants. 13. Nationalization. 14. Fate. 

A Feiv Admitted Facts. 

If such writers as Charles Francis Adams, Francis Newton 
Thorpe, and J. P. Gordy, in their efforts to place the tremen- 
dous responsibilities of the Great War on the South, can pro- 
duce no sustaining facts there are no such facts. We lay down 
as an indisputable proposition that facts which ignore the Con- 
stitution are not admissable. If there is one central fact in the 
history of our country around which all other facts should circle, 
that one fact is the Federal Constitution. By its adoption, all 
the States pledged their sacred honor to abide its terms. It was 
the "Balm of Gilead" for all their wounds. To reject it was to 
invite political disease and death. It was rejected in the Sixties 
by the North ; and the world knows the result. 

Now that the war is a thing of the past its defenders find 
themselves embarrassed from a Constitutional standpoint. So 
much was said ; so much was done ; so much sorrow and suffer- 
ing and death and ruin was brought to the country — all in the 
name of the Constitution — that it is now more than human na- 
ture can do to confess the wrong. Therefore from sheer neces- 
sity they have invented substitutes for the constitution. These 
substitutes abound. They are are too numerous for all to receive 
proper attention here. We shall therefore confine ourselves to 
only fourteen. Were it not for the very serious results that fol- 
lowed the violation of the Constitution by the North in the Six- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 279 

ties these substitutes would be laughable. To future generations 
they will be the subjects of ridicule, yea of scorn; for what sub- 
stitutes for the Constitution, the embodiment, of the plighted 
faith of the States, could justify all the horrors of the Sixties? We 
have perhaps mentioned already the most, if not all of the sub- 
stitutes, we are now about to consider. However that may be, 
we now propose to group them that the world may behold the 
motley group. 

1. The first substitute we shall mention is "A Pious Fraud." 
Fraud is its name. Even its piety cannot change either its name 
or its character. Its claim to support the Constitution is unsus- 
tained by fact, fitness, or reason. J. P. Gordy, for the want of 
sustaining facts, has asserted that, "the Convention framed a 
Constitution by the adoption of which thirteen peoples, imagin- 
ing themselves still independent and sovereign, really acknowl- 
edged themselves to be parts of a single political whole." (Po- 
litical Parties in the United States.) Mr. Gordy thus declares 
that the States were Independent and Sovereign before they 
adopted the Constitution, a fact he could not deny. But his con- 
cluding clause is without even the semblance of fact, resting on 
his bare assertion. Charles Francis Adams, referring to these 
words of Gordy, and basing his statement on them, declared that 
"A Pious Fraud was, in 1788, perpetrated on the average Ameri- 
can" — that is, the States were robbed of their independence 
and sovereignty without their knowing it. What a bold asser- 
tion ! How reckless, how unfounded ! What a stretch of the 
imagination ! What limitation can be fixed for inventive genius 
under the strain of necessity ! Do not Mr. Gordy and Mr. Adams 
know that stolen goods still belong to the rightful owner? Do 
they not, therefore, also know that even if such an absurdity 
could have been fact the States would still have maintained their 
Independence and Sovereignty? But whether there was fraud 
or no fraud, one thing is assured beyond contradiction, viz : That 
the intention of the framers of the Constitution was to preserve 
the Independence and Sovereignty of the States. And who does 
not know the supreme importance of the intention of the law- 
makers in determining the true construction of the law? But, 



380 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

aside from it all, who believes that the Philadelphia Convention 
was capable of deliberately planning- and committing a fraud, 
whether pious or impious? Never assembled for nobler purpose 
nobler specimens of true and virtuous manhood. Very bold in- 
deed is the man who would make such a charge ! Who believes 
that, but for sheer necessity, such a fraud would have ever been 
invented, yea, would ever have been conceived in the brain of 
man ? There was no such fraud. 

2. A second Substitute is ''We, the People" in the preamble 
of the Constitution. It is conceded that all preamples find their 
explanation in the body of the instrument. No people, no State, 
is a truism. And what is a State but "the whole body of a peo- 
ple united under one Government?" What the State therefore 
does the people of the State do. What the States united do the 
people of the States united do. That is all "We the people of 
the United States" in the preamble to the Constitution declares or 
means. Do your utmost. You cannot make anything else out of 
it. It is probable, however, that the term might have been so 
expressed as to have rendered it more difficult for designing poli- 
ticians to twist its meaning to suit their own sinister designs. 
Let us experiment. If the preamble had said, "We the People 
of the respective States United," would it have had a different 
meaning from "We the People of the United States"? If it had 
read "We the States United," would it not have meant the same 
since a State is the whole body of people united under one gov- 
ernment? What then, but an inevitable necessity could find the 
Consolidation of the States in the term, "We the People of the 
United States"? 

Let us look a little further. Were they not States, or, as Web- 
ster and Madison and others termed them, nations united for a 
common purpose, having a common interest? The very face of 
the instrument shows they did not part with all their powers, 
but only with such as they specified in the instrument. Did they 
not continue to exist still as the same States and under the same 
names? As the same States, known by the same names as be- 
fore the Union, did they not exercise all the powers they had 
not ceded? Did they not inaugurate the Federal Government 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OP THE SOUTH 281 

itself? Did that Federal Givernment have the rig'ht to exercise 
a single power these States had not granted it? Could the Gov- 
ernment ever have gone into operation without the consent of 
these States in their political capacity? 

Besides, was not the Constitution a Compact among the States ? 
Is not this one point in which all authorities are agreed? Will 
it be argued that it is a compact with the Government and not 
a compact of each State with the others? Can it be denied that 
a Government founded on a compact to which each State was a 
party, was a Federal Government? If it was not a Government 
■formed by a league of the States how shall we account for the 
fact that the States adopted the Constitution at different times 
and on different conditions? Have we not shown in a previous 
chapter that New York, Virginia and Rhode Island entered the 
Union on conditions proposed by themselves? Did not the last 
named State refuse to enter the Confederacy for more than a 
year after the inauguration of Washington? 

"We the People" means nothing more than that "the people 
of the several vStates had been consulted and had given their 
consent to the instrument." Did not Washington style the Fed- 
eral Government a "Confederated Government" ? And what does 
that mean but States or Nations united in a league, or allied by 
treaty, or united in a Confederacy? In a pamphlet edition of 
Webster's speech at Capon Springs in Virginia on the 28th day 
of June, 1851, Webster affirmed that "the Union was a Union 
of States," and that it was "founded upon compact." He then 
added : "How is it to be supposed that when different parties 
enter into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard 
any one provision and expect, nevertheless, the others to observe 
the rest?" — that is "a compact broken on one side could not 
continue to bind the other." These are Webster's own words. 
A Compact among the States and a Confederacy of the States 
means the same. Did not all New England during Madison's 
Administration declare the Government a Confederacy, subject 
to dissolution ! And what is a Confederacy but a league, a cove- 
nant, or contract? When applied to States it is nothing less than 
a league or covenant, or contract among States. This is as far 



2S2 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

from a consolidation of States as the East is from the West. 
If we turn to the Philadelphia Convention we find that twenty- 
six times the term "National Government" was stricken from the 
Randolph resolutions and twenty-six times the term "United 
States" was substituted in their stead. If we turn to the States 
ratifying the Constitution we find them unanimous and emphatic 
in declaring that this Republic of States is one with limited pow- 
ers — having only granted powers — and that the States are free, 
independent and sovereign over their reserved rights. If we turn 
to the Constitution itself we find that all the powers not granted 
to the Federal Government "are reserved to the States or the 
people." If we are still in doubt the closing words of that in- 
strument remove all doubt, thus : "Done in Convention by the 
unanimous consent of the States present." "The States or the 
people" then mean the States; and the States means the people 
of the States. What now is the meaning of "We, the People of 
the United States" in the preamblie of the Constitution? Ne- 
cessity must seek another substitute. And here it is : 

3. "A Divided Sovereignty." Comparatively speaking there 
are only a few who distinguish between the term "Divided Sov- 
ereignty'^ and "the Divided Powers of Sovereignty." Even 
Judge Iredell, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme 
Court, treated the two terms as synonymous. This fact gave 
the necessitied defenders of the justice of the war against the 
South a new substitute ; one that could be made to seem plaus- 
ible, by quoting a Judge of the Supreme Court, and all who 
use this argument quote Judge Iredell, — omitting the fact that 
the Judge made the two terms identical. There is, there can 
be, no such a thing as "a Divided Sovereignty." Therefore 
it can not form a basis for an argument. There is such a thing 
as the divided Powers of vSovereignty. This the States in the 
Convention realized. "The powers delegated" are words of 
the Constitution. "The powers reserved to the States are also 
words of the Constitution. If we look to the Constitution, we 
do not find in it any such term as "a Divided Sovereignty" — 
not even the remotest reference to it. But we do find, from 
its preamble to its finish, beneath the surface, the consent of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 283 

the States to divide their Powers of Sovereignty with the Cen- 
tral Government, the product of the several States in their 
political capacity. 

But if this fiction should be a fact the advocates of centralism 
would profit nothing. For then the Federal Government would 
be sovereign over its share of the Divided Sovereignty, and the 
States, sovereign over their part. Charles Francis Adams con- 
cedes this fact in these words : "In case of a direct and insol- 
uble issue between sovereign State and sovereign Nation every 
man was not only free to decide, but had to decide the question 
of ultimate allegiance for himself; and whichever way he decided, 
he was right. The Constitution gave him two masters. Both 
he could not serve ; and the average man decided which to serve 
in the light of sentiment, tradition, and environment." If then 
the term Divided Sovereignty be found in the Constitution, those 
who gave their allegiance to their sovereign State were "right." 
Therefore the people of the South were right when they gave 
their allegiance to their states in the Sixties. Upon what ground 
then, can this third substitute for the Constitution justify the 
invasion of the South by the North? Must a people be slaugh- 
tered for being right? 

4. A Fourth Substitute is "Tlie Union is Much Older than 
the Constitution." Did ever fertile brain of Necessity invent a 
more remarkable fiction ? If, for no other reason, it is most 
remarkable for its absurdity. 

As well say the superstructure preceded the foundation. This 
fiction originated in the brain of Abraham Lincoln. The Amer- 
ican ear caught its first note in Lincoln's inaugural address. The 
order of events was as follows: (1) A Convention of the 
States in Philadelphia: (2) the framing of the Constitution: (3) 
the submission of the Constitution to the several States for its 
ratification or rejection; (4) the ratification of the Constitution 
by eleven of the thirteen States — two refusing for a time to rat- 
ify it, one waiting for more than a year after the inauguration 
of Washington. When eight States had adopted the Constitu- 
tion "the Union" did not exist. Why? Because the Constitu- 
tion was master of the situation and it declared that the ratifica- 



284 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tion by nine States was necessary to form the Union. Can 
it be imagined how this Constitution could have been so author- 
itative and yet not exist? 

But Lincohi, in order to prove that "the Union is much older 
than the Constitution," assumed that the thirteen British col- 
onies were thirteen free, independent and sovereign States. An 
assutnption indeed, not fact. His words are these: "It was 
formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 177-i." There 
was no such thing as an American State at that time. All 
others will find great difficulty in calling this Association of Col- 
onies the Union of States, but Lincoln did not. The Union 
means a particular Union, not just any asosciation of Colonies 
or even States. All sensible men (excuse the remark) know 
that the Union means that particular Union formed by Ameri- 
can States on the basis of the Philadelphia Constitution, this and 
no other. 

Upon this false basis Lincoln affirmed that the secession of a 
State was "insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to cir- 
cumstances .... And to the extent of my ability I shall take care, 
as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the 
laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States." Is 
not the question pertinent here? — Was it Lincoln's wrong con- 
ception of the origin and nature of the Union, and of the Con- 
stitution and the laws, that inaugurated the war? 

Who does not know that the American States, or. in the words 
of Daniel Webster, the American Nations, could not form a 
league of States or Nation when they were mere British Colon- 
ies, subject provinces of Great Britain; or in other words before 
they were States or Nations ? Necessity makes plains of moun- 
tains and mountains of plains. Necessity, holding the throttle 
of a mighty Government, is next to omnipotence itself. Its 
absurdities are facts. Its foolishness is wisdom. Its madness 
is justice. Law and facts and all things sacred and holy lay 
crushed beneath its iron heel. 

5. A Fifth Substitute is A Higher Law. We lay down as 
an indisputable proposition that no Higher Law existed in 1860, 
which did not exist in 1788. We also lav down as an indisputa- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 285 

ble proposition that the Constitution did not conflict with "A 
Higher Law" in 17.SS. It therefore follows that the Constitu- 
tion did not conflict with "A Higher Law" in 18G0. 

We also lay down the indisputable proposition that all is not 
a higher law that is so called. The martyr at the stake is 
burned in the name of a higher law. Nero assassinated his 
mother, burned Rome, and made bonfires of Christians, — all in 
the name of a higher law. Can that be a higher law in the 
name of which one section of a great country slaughtered the 
citizens of the other, plundered their homes and ravished their 
fields, because they were true to their States and faithful to a 
common compact? Does a Higher Law disregard fidelity to a 
sacred oath, to a venerated compact, and to legal and inherited 
rights ? 

"So spake the friend, and with necessity. 

The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds." 

6. *'An Unwritten Constitution," a substitute for the Written 
Instrument. (Thorpe p. 161). It is remarkable for its origin. 
It originated in no legislative assembly. Lightning struck the 
Tree of Necessity, and out dropped "the Unwritten Constitu- 
tion." Without the authority of organized society it was above 
all authority. Without due process of law it was above all law. 
It was also remarkable for its uniqueness. It was like no other 
that ever was, ever is, ever will be, or ever can be. We refer 
to it in the past tense, for it no longer is. The Constitution 
which it supplanted stands like adamant, somewhat marred it 
is true, while the Unwritten Constitution is a mere dream of 
the past. Its epitaph is written: "Here lies the Unwritten 
Constitution, one of the many substitutes for the American Char- 
ter of Liberty. It was mysteriously born, without parentage. 
It served its evil day, and died 'unhonored and unsung.' " See 
chapter seven, devoted exclusively to this bogus substitute, 

7. "A Common law," defined by Charles Francis Adams as 
a "Metaphysical Abstraction," is another substitute for the Con- 
stitution. The term, "metaphysical abstraction," is obscure in 
meaning. But obscurity is "trumps" in the hands of the de- 
fenders of the Constitutional right to wage war against the 



286 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

South, in the Sixties. If the term, common, designates a law 
common to the whole country, North and South alike, there was 
no such law except the common Cojistitution. But the Com- 
mon Law, here referred to, supplanted the Constitution. There- 
fore it was not that instrument. England has her common 
law. It receives its binding force from "immemorial usage and 
universal reception, as ascertained and expressed in the judgment 
of the Courts." But the Common Law, supplanting the Con- 
stitution, has received no such binding force. Its usage is not 
from time immemorial. Its recepiton is far from being uni- 
versal, as testified by the facts of history, including the war 
itself. Nor does it find its justification in having been ascertain- 
ed and expressed in the judgments of the Courts. Such a 
common law never did exist in the land — not even in all the 
Northern States. It is mere fiction. What must be the na- 
ture of that Necessity which declares a fiction to be a reality, 
and then exalts it to a more honorable position in the welfare 
of this American Republic than it gives to the fundamental law 
of the land ! 

8. A Governmental Organic Growth supplanted the Consti- 
tution. (The Civil War from a Northern Standpoint. Vol. 
15, p. 163). Mr. Thorpe prefaces this fiction with these words: 
"The Confederation of 1777 was a league created by the States, 
and the power that creates is always greater than the power 
that is created." This indisputable fact applies also to the Fed- 
eral Government, for it too was a league created by the States. 
After stating this fact Mr. Thorpe immediately leaves the field 
of reality for that of pure fiction, thus: "Yet all the while 
that this rather indefinite notion of state sovereignty was abroad 
in the land, the United States as an organic power was stead- 
ily developing. Events stronger than State Constitutions, or 
arguments of men, were shaping national affairs, and the Na- 
tion as an organic power was in being. That it was feeble, 
that its purposes were obscure, and its wants were denied are 
matters of history; but the fact that a nation, an organism, 
embodying the will of the vv^hole people, was in being, there can 
be no doubt." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 287 

That the Government was a league he, Thorpe, could not deny, 
for it is a fact that stands out upon the eminence of time undis- 
puted. Having admitted this fact he was compelled to admit 
the sovereignty of the States. Driven by necessity he attempts 
to overcome the effect of these admissions, by declaring that 
while the notion of state sovereignty was abroad in the land it 
w^as rather indefinite. The facts are that at the time of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, and the framing of the Constitution 
the notions of State sovereignty were the most definite, the most 
wide-awake, and the most energetic that ever moved men to ac- 
tion, or communities to noble achievement. They gave to the 
world the great American charter of human rights and human 
liberty. Its merits are proclaimed the world around. It is to- 
day revolutionizing the governments of all nations. 

That charter represents an organic power, indeed, because or- 
ganized on the basis of law and order ; and because, as confessed, 
it was a league of independent sovereign "States or Nations" 
(Webster). All the growth of the Federal Organism, therefore, 
depended on the growth of the State Organisms. If the States 
grew the Federal Government grew. It could not grow apart 
from the States. They gave it being ; they nursed it ; they fed 
it; they clothed it; they gave it its power, its influence; and 
today, in spite of its terrible internal strife, it is perhaps the 
greatest of world powers ; — all, all, through the wisdom, and in- 
fluence of the States as separate and independent organisms 
united for their special good benefit. As the State Govern- 
ments grew in influence and power they signified it by new and ad- 
vanced laws, the acts of their legislatures, passed in due form and 
with due deliberation. But when "the Federal Organism grew," it 
forgot its origin and it forgot law and order, and proclaimed its 
authority over its creators, declaring its purpose to crush all the 
States that denied its usurped right to do so. One of the two 
great sections of this Republic refused to acknowledge this as- 
sumed right. The great war resulted, based on usurped au- 
thority. The wrong of that usurpation will wake the echoes 
of time till time shall be no more. 

9. The Silence of the Constitution was another substitute 
for that instrument. (Lincoln's Cooper Institute speech and his 



288 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Inaugural address). As we have shown elsewhere the silence 
of the Constitution confers no authority whatever on the Fed- 
eral Government ; that on the contrary all the powers not ex- 
pressly granted to the States United belong exclusively to the 
States. In other words its silence is always against the Govern- 
ment and always for the States in their separate capacity. In 
his Cooper Institute speech, Mr. Lincoln, referring to the deci- 
sion of the Supreme Court, that slave-owners could take their 
slaves into the Common Territories and be protected there, said, 
"But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution ;" 
again, "an inspection of the Constitution will show that the right 
of property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed 
in it." He makes this statement thinking the Constitution was 
silent on the subject, but indeed it is the only species of property 
distinctly and specifically recognized by that instrument. (Art. 
3, Sec. 1). 

In his Inaugural Address he asks: "May Congress pro- 
hibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not ex- 
pressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? 
The Constitution does not expressly say." Thus the silence 
of the Constitution was construed by Mr. Lincoln to give him 
the right to exercise powers belonging exclusively to the States. 
Was not this usurpation, pure and simple? 

False constructions of the Constitution, based on false prem- 
ises, following closely in the wake of the publication of Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, had more to do in causing the war than anything 
else. May we not conjecture why Lincoln ventured so far? He 
knew the prevailing sentiment of the North as but few others did. 
He knew the general ignorance of the people as to the Consti- 
tution. He also knew human nature as well as any man. Nor 
was he ignorant of the immortality secured in freeing four million 
of slaves. Did he not define it as "the new birth of freedom?" 
May not a veteran, a soldier of the entire war, in the name of 
his comrades who were the bravest of the brave, the loyalest of the 
loyal, enter a solemn protest against the right of usurped authority 
to apply to them the epithet of "breeds and traitors;" and to wage 
against them a most destructive war, unfurling over their in- 
vading millions a flag symbolizing the Constitution unmarred 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 289 

by substitutes or false constructions? There beat not a heart 
in all the Southland during the early Sixties but was true to 
the unimpaired Constitution of their common country. They 
could sing- with an earnest pathos the immortal words of Key: 
"The Star-springled banner, O long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." 

10. "The Wrong of Slarvery" was another substitute for the 
Constitution. Before his election, in his Cooper Institute speech, 
Mr. Lincoln said "Their (the South) thinking it (slavery) right 
and our thinking it wrong is the precise question upon which 
depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right as they do 
they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition as being 
right, but thinking it wrong as we do, can we yield to them?" 
After his election, on the 22nd day of December, 1860, writing 
to the Hon. Alexander Stephens of Georgia, he said, "You think 
slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we think it is 
wrong and ought to be restricted. That, I suppose is the rub. 
It certainly is the only substantial difference between us." 

Mr. Thorpe, commenting on these words, says "This 'substan- 
tial difference' compassed the point which could not be com- 
promised." When we consider the significance of Lincoln's 
question, "Can we yield to them?" and the "substantial differ- 
ence" that admitted of no truce or concession, what are we to 
think of this substitute ; and on whom should rest the responsi- 
bility for that war? 

11. A Party Platform Sectional to the core, was another sub- 
stitute for the Constitution. Its main plank was restriction of 
slavery. Well did that party know this restriction would not 
free one slave, or effect the institution in any way. Its effect 
could be only to increase sectional bitterness both in the North 
and South. It reversed a decision of the Supreme Court, ren- 
dered only three years in advance. Such was its revolutionary 
tendency that Francis Newton Thorpe, editor of "The Civil War 
From a Northern Standpoint," has been compelled to confess. 
"Of all the presidents from Washington to Lincoln not one stood 
for an anti-slavery policy, distinctively favoring the limitation 
of slavery. And their attitude reflected the prevailing opinion 
of the American people in their time. Slavery was accepted 



290 mCHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

as an established institution, and under the guardianship and 
protection of the Constitution and the laws." (p. 52.) Here 
is a substitute that reversed the policy of all preceding- presidents 
of the Republic, and contradicted the prevailing opinion of the 
American people for the same length of time. Was this substi- 
tute meant to be revolutionary? 

12. The Indifference of Foreign Immigrants as to Constitu- 
tional obligations was another substitute. Charles Francis 
Adams asks, "What did the foreign immigrants now swarming 
across the ocean care for States? They knew only the Nation. 
Brought up in Europe the talk of State sovereignty was to them 
foolishness. Its alphabet was incomprehensible. In a word, it 
too was caviare to the general." It is a question easy of com- 
prehension, how these foreigners could be used as tools in the 
hands of designing ambition, and arrayed against the well-be- 
ing and life of their adopted country, but it is a question of 
great difficulty, how their ignorance and indifference, and their 
former custom, could be used as an argument to overthrow the 
Federal Constitution. Here, confessedly, ignorance was used 
to justify centralism and coercion. It was used by a few de- 
signing men. May we not also with equal certainty and equal 
justice infer that the ignorance of the great Northern masses 
was used by the same designing few to sustain their contention 
that the Constitution was outgrown, and, therefore, should be 
subordinated. It was not the Northern masses who incited 
revolution and slaughter, who sought fame and renown at such 
a terrible cost, but the Northern few. It was not the Northern 
few who suffered, bled, and died, but the Northern masses. It 
was not the Northern masses who were enriched by the results 
of the war, but the Northern few, 

13. Another substitute is Nationalization, Chas. Francis 
Adams. (Lee's Centennial, p. 12). "By this term is meant the 
act of transforming a Federal Government defined by Webster a 
Covenant Government between Nations — into a consolidated Gov- 
ernment : a Nation of granted powers and, therefore, of limited 
powers, into a Nation of powers not granted, and. therefore, of 
powers not limited by the States." In support of this fiction, 
treated by Mr. Adams as a fact, he says, "There can be little 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 291 

question that during the lives of two successive generations a 
custom of nationality grew up which became the accepted Com- 
mon Law of the land. This was true in the South as well as 
in the North." This is all mere assumption. It is well known 
that it does not apply to the South in the remotest degree. We 
have shown in chapter 19 that Mr. Adams in reply to the College 
President admits that the Virginian is right on the main issue, 
which is : "The Confederate character of the Union was more 
strongly impressed upon the South in 1861 than in 1788, fol- 
lowed by these words of similar meaning: "The South had 
never suffered nationality in spirit or in Fact." Mr. Adams' 
admission is in these words : "But on the main issue— the es- 
sential point in the extract from his letter — the writer was, I 
think right. Previous to 1861 the South did not undergo na- 
tionalization, to the same extent, at any event, as the North." 

A further effort of Mr. Adams to sustain his nationalization 
theory is in these words : "The custom of nationality even in 
the South was incontrovertibly shown in the very act of secession 
— the seceding States at once crystallizing into a Confederacy. 
Nationality was assumed as a thing of course." If by the term 
nationality Mr. Adams means that character of nationality as- 
sumed by the union of the eleven Confederate States in a com- 
mon Government, the writer makes no issue with him. For 
this was precisely the character of the nationality the South and 
the world attributed to the United States Government prior to 
1861. The Confederation of the eleven Southern States in 1861 
meant just what the Confederation of the thirteen original States 
did by their Confederation. 

We shall now show from Mr. Adams's own lips that the Con- 
federation of the original thirteen States meant the very opposite 
to Centralism. Here are his plain words of unmistakable mean- 
ing: "When that war broke out in 1861 the last of the framers 
of the Constitution had been a score of years in his grave ; but 
evidence is conclusive that until the decennium between 1830 and 
1 840 the belief was nearly universal that in case of an unavoidable 
issue, Sovereignty resided m the State, and to it allegiance was 
due. The law was laid down in the Kentuckv resolutions of 1T89 ; 
and to the law thus laid down Webster assented. Chancellor Rawls 



292 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

so propounded the law : and such was the understanding of so un- 
prejudiced a foreign observer as DeTocqueville. The technical 
argument — the logic of the proposition— seems plain and to my 
thought unanswerable. The original sovereignty was indis- 
putable in the State." (Lee's Centennial). Strong words are 
these from the lips of a Northern veteran. They confess all 
diat the South claims in defense of the righteousness of her 
cause. It is little wonder that substitutes for the Constitution 
should abound. 

14. Fate, hallowed by mystery, is another substitute. Within 
its mystic self it is thought exist the unknown and the unknow- 
able. Wrong conceptions of its true nature cause many guilty 
consciences to seek its mysterious protection. 

Fate is not law, but result. It is not cause, but its effect. 
It therefore cannot exist without law and without cause. A 
fate without a cause has never been known. Immutable law 
exists in all the ramifications of nature. It is in the movement 
of an atom. Ft directs and guides the movements of the vast solar 
systems with all their satellites, asteroids, meteoroids, and com- 
ets. The result of this law is the absolute safety of the Uni- 
verse; — that is, its secure fate is due to the immutable law of 
the Universe. We therefore conclude that fate is a result, not 
a law ; an effect, not a cause. Unchangeable law controls all 
causes ; and all causes have their results or effect ; and the na- 
ture of a cause determines the nature of the effect. "Whatso- 
ever a man soweth that shall he also reap." If he sows wheat, 
he is fated to reap wheat. A criminal dies on the gallows ; his 
crimes are the cause ; the gallows his fate. 

Fate is not an eternal principle that binds man and God and 
all other intelligences and all things else, as some think. No 
one has ever claimed that fate is a person, or any other thing 
of intelligence. Fate therefore has no will, and hence no power 
to choose. Also, being without intelligence, it has no power to 
guide or direct. Therefore, whatever it is, it has neither the 
power of choice nor the ability to instruct. It Is as helpless, 
and as much under the control of law, as a falling body. Yet 
men claim for this powerless non-descript a force that even fet- 
ters On^nipotence. Such are the inevitable conclusions from 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 293 

impeachable prenijises. AH know there is no power above that 
of the Omnipotent God of this Universe, its Creator and Preser- 
ver. Therefore Fate is not what some think it is, but simply 
the result of a cause ; — this and nothing miore. 

But be fate whatever it may it is absolutely certain it is not 
a substitute for the Constitution. If, however, there could pos- 
sibly be a question as to its being a rightful substitute for the 
Constitution the silence of that instrument would make the State 
and not the Federal Government the judge unless its silence is 
also subordinated to Fate's imperious rules. The same may be 
said of all the thirteen other so-called Substitutes grouped in 
this chapter for the particular purpose of calling special attention 
to their true nature, and hence to their self-evident unfitness for 
so high a purpose. We shall treat of other substitutes as the 
occasion demands. 

A few Admitted Facts in this connection ; Charles Francis 
Adams, in Lee's Centennial, states this universally admitted fact : 
"All attributes not specifically conceded were reserved to the 
States, and no attributes of moment were to be construed as 
conceded by implication. There is no attribute of sovereigntv 
so important as allegiance — the citizenship — Not only was alle- 
giance — the right to define and establish citizenship — not among 
the attributes specifically conceded by the several States to 
the central nationality, but, on the contrary it was explicitly re- 
served, the instrument declaring that 'the citizens of each State' 
should be entitled to 'all the privileges and immunities of citi- 
zens in the several States/ Ultimate allegiance was, therefore, 
due to the State which defined and created citizenship, and not 
to the central organization which accepted as citizens whomso- 
ever the states pronounced to be such. Thus far I have never 
been able to see where room was left for doubt. Citizenship 
was an attribute recognized by the Constitution as originating 
with, and of course belonging to, the several States." (pp. 11 
and 12). 

Mr. Thorpe, Editor of the Civil War from a Northern stand- 
point, admits as much. But just as soon as such admissions 
are made, apparently in good faith, the admitter flies ofif at a 
tangent in language somewhat like these words of Mr. Adams : 



294 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The Anglo Saxon race and their hard common sense," "their 
estabhshed custom of recognizing as a binding rule of action are 
embodied in wliat they are proud to term Common Law," etc. 
They then unblushingly subordinated the Constitution to the An- 
glo Saxon "Common Sense" and "Common Law," etc. They 
also refer to the North as constituting "the conservative ma- 
jority" and as "believers in National Sovereignty," and to the 
South as "those who passionately adhered to State sovereignty, 
treading in the footsteps of the fathers," and "those who have 
become eighteenth century reactionists." 

Pause here for a moment's reflection. The Constitution was 
once revered alike in the North and in the South. Then came 
there a time when the North ranked substitutes above the Con- 
stitution as the supreme law of the land while the South for her 
unbroken devotion to the Constitution was given the sobriquet 
of "Eighteenth Century reactionists." By this fanciful epithet 
is meant the South in 1861 still construed the Constitution as 
it was construed during Washington's term of office as Presi- 
dent. Was it a crime to place Washington's construction of the 
Constitution and that of his compeers upon this instrument? If 
not by what code of morals was the South condemned in 1861 
as "rebels and traitors?" 



CHAPTER XXI. 

"COERCION UNDER THE SMOOTH PHRASES 
OF EXECUTING THE LAWS AND PRO- 
TECTING PUBLIC PROPERTY." 

(Senator Lane of Oregon.) 

Among other things we have shown that in the early davs of 
this Republic no man denied the right of secession. We have 
shown that the Federal Government taught this right to its own 
cadets in its own military school at West Point. We have 
shown that as late as 1844 when the annexation of Texas was 
a burning issue the New England States asserted this right as 
a matter of fact. We have shown that four years later, in 
1848, Abraham Lincoln, in the broadest of terms, declared the 
right of a State to secede. The unmistakable meaning of the 
fourteen substitutes for the Constitution, recited in the last chap- 
ter, teach the same lesson. In short we have shown from high 
Northern authority that in the dawn of this Republic, when the 
people were deeply concerned on the question of State rights 
and State Sovereignty that "nine men out of every ten in the 
North and ninety-nine out of every hundred in the South" be- 
lieved the States had this right. 

In the closing days of 1860 and early days of 1861, before 
Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, the public mind was being tested 
as to the right of the Federal Government "to enforce the la\y 
and collect revenues in the seceding States." Expressions of 
opinion, by the leading statesmen and leading papers in the 
North, developed the fact that in spite of "unwritten constitu- 
tions," "higher laws," "common laws," "nationalization," etc., 
the South was not alone by a great deal, even then, in asserting 
the right of secession. Few indeed were those who openly de- 
clared the right of the Government to coerce the seceding States. 
And even these few presented it under the "delusive and am- 



296 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

biguous guise of the 'the execution of the laws' and 'protection 
of pubhc property.' " 

Mr. Greely, the editor of the New York Tribune and author 
of "The American Conflict," on November the 9th, 18(50, only 
a few days after the election of Lincoln, said : "We hold with 
Jefferson to the inalienable right of communities to alter or 
abolish forms of government that have become oppressive, or 
injurious; and if the Cotton States shall decide that they can 
do better out of the Union than in it we insist on letting them 
go in peace. The right to secede may be revolutionary but it 
exists nevertheless; and we do not see how one party can have 
a right to do what another party has the right to prevent. We 
must ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in 
the Union, and nullify or defy the laws thereof. And when- 
ever a considerable section of our country shall deliberately re- 
solve to go out, we shall resist all coercion measures designed 
to keep her in. We hope never to live in a republic whereof 
one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." (American 
Conflict ch. 23, p 359.) 

Mr. Greely, as editor of the Tribune, did more perhaps than 
any other in securing the election of Lincoln. He was regard- 
ed as Lincoln's most influential champion. These words of his 
have the true Constitutional ring, and are kindred in sentiment 
to the utterances of Hamilton and Madison and Marshall and 
all the great statesmen who wrought so well in the early days 
of this American Republic. 

The Albany Argus, only second in ability to that of Tri- 
bune said: "We sympathize with and justify the South as far 
as this: their rights have been invaded to the extreme limit 
possible within the forms of the Constitution and. beyond this 
limit their feelings have been insulted and their interest and 
honor assailed by almost every possible form of denunciation 
and invective: and, if we deemed it certain that the real animus 
of the Republican Party could be carried into the administration 
of the Federal Government, and become the jiermanent policy 
of the Nation, we should think that all the instincts of self- 
preservation and of manhood rightfully impel them to a resort 
to revolution and to a separation from the LTnion, and we 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 297 

would applaud them and wish them God-speed in the adoption 
of such a remedy. . . . 

"If South CaroHna or any other State, through a convention 
of her people, shall formally separate herself from the Union, 
probably both the present and the next administration will 
simply let her alone, and quietly allow all the functions of the 
Federal Government within her limits to be suspended. Any 
other course would be madness ; as it would at once enlist all 
the Southern States in the controversy and plunge the whole 
country into a civil war. . . . As a matter of policy and 
wisdom, therefore, independent of the question of right, we 
should deem resort to force most disastrous." (American Con- 
flict). 

The American Conflict is also authority that the New York 
Herald, about the same time, said, "Each State is organized as 
a complete Government, holding the purse and weilding the 
sword, possessing the right to break the tie of Confederation 
as a nation might break a treaty, and repell coercion as a Nation 
might repell invasion." 

These great papers, centers of wide influence, went into the 
homes of Northern millions. Doubtless in a vast majority of 
those homes their views on the right of a State to secede were 
heartily endorsed. The question, therefore, is how were these 
wide-spread sentiments in favor of peace overcome and made 
to favor coercion. We shall see as we proceed. 

On the 21st day of January, 1861, only a month and a few 
days before the inauguration of Lincoln, a vast meeting of 
prominent citizens assembled in the city of New York. Six 
States had now seceded, and the condition of the country was 
perilous. This alarming condition of the country had called to- 
gether this great assembly. James S. Thayer was one of the 
principle speakers. His speech was received with great ap- 
plause. Here are sentences from that speech: "We can at 
least, in an authoritative way and a practical manner, arrive 
at the basis of a peaceable separation. (Applause). We can at 
least by discussion enlighten, settle, and concentrate public senti- 
ment in the State of New York upon this question, and save 
it from a fearful current, which circuitously but certainly sweeps 



298 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

madly on, through the narrow gorge of 'the enforcement of 
the laws' to the shoreless ocean of civil war! (Cheers). Against 
this, under all circumstances, in every place and form, we must 
now and at all times oppose a resolute, unfaltering resistance. 
The public mind will bear the avowal, and let us make it. — 
that if a revolution of force is to begin it shall be inaugurated 
at home. And if the incoming administration shall attempt to 
carry out the line of policy that has been foreshadowed, we 
announce that, when the hand of Black Republicanism turns to 
blood-red, and seeks from the fragment of the Constitution to 
construct a scaffolding for coercion — another name for execution 
— we will reverse the order of the French Revolution, and save 
the blood of the people by making those who would inaugurate 
a reign of terror the first victims of a national guillotine." (En- 
thusiastic applause.) 

"It is announced that the Republican administration will en- 
force the laws against and in all the seceding States. A nice 
discrimination must be exercised in the performance of this 
duty. You remember the story of William Tell . . . Let 
an arrow winged by Federal bow strike the heart of an American 
citizen, and who can number the avenging darts that will cloud 
the heavens in the conflict that will ensue? (Prolonged ap- 
plause). W'hat then is the duty of the State of New York? 
What shall we say to our people when we come to meet this state 
of facts? That the Union must be preserved? But if that can- 
not be done, what then? Peaceful separation. (Applause). Pain- 
ful and humiliating as it is, let us temper it with all we can of 
love and kindness, so that we may yet be left in a compara- 
tively prosperous condition, in friendly relations to another con- 
federacy." (Cheers.) 

If those patriotic and well received sentiments had prevailed 
in the North all the woes, all the heart-aches, all the devasta- 
tions of homes and property, and all the hundreds of thousands 
of patriot lives that went out in the mighty struggle, would 
have been saved, and the way would have been paved for the 
reuniting of the dissatisfied and severed States. But, instead, 
the hopeless note of alarm was sounded in the words, "the fear- 
ful current which circuitously but certainly sweeps madly on, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 299 

through the narrow gorge of 'the enforcement of the laws' to 
the shoreless ocean of civil war." And through that deceptive 
gorge the "current" swept on and on till the whole South- 
land lay devasted and in ruins, and the flower of her chivalry 
slept in warriors' graves. 

In that meeting there was another distinguished citizen of 
the Empire State. It was no less than the ex-Governor Horatio 
Seymour. He propounded this question : "Whether successful 
coercion by the North is less revolutionary than successful se- 
cession by the South? Shall we prevent revolution by being 
foremost in overthrowing the principles of our Government, 
and all that makes it valuable to our people, and distinguishes 
it among the nations of the earth?" Who can deny the revolu- 
tionary character of coercion? Who can deny that in the exer- 
cise of coercion which immediately followed the inauguration of 
the Lincoln-Seward administration, they were less absolute in 
the exercise of power than were Nero or the Pharaohs? Who 
does not know how deceitfully and ruthlessly the border States, 
without their consent, were invaded and their citizens arrested 
without warrant or charge, and the State Governments them- 
selves dominated and terrorized into subjugation? 

There was still another distinguished citizen in that meeting. 
It was the venerable ex-Chancellor Walworth. His words, mel- 
lowed by age, experience, and wisdom, were these : "It would be 
as brutal in my opinion to send men to butcher our own brothers 
of the Southern States as it would be to massacre them in the 
Northern States. We are told, 'however,that it is our duty to, 
and we must enforce the laws. But why and what laws are 
to be enforced? There were laws to be enforced in the Ameri- 
can Revolution. . . . Did Lord Chatham go for enforcing 
those laws? No, he gloried in the defense of the liberties of 
America. He made that memorable declaration in the British 
Parliament, "If I were an American citizen instead of being, as 
I am, an Englishman, I never would submit to such laws, — 
never, never, never." (Prolonged applause). 

Other distinguished speakers were present and uttered similar 
sentiments. Resolutions of a reconciliatory nature were adopt- 
ed. And let it be remembered that these speeches and these 



300 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

resolutions were made more than a month in advance of the 
inauguration of Lincoln. The leading- statesmen saw that a 
policy was shaping, which, if adopted by the incoming adminis- 
tration, would inaugurate war under the guise of "enforcing 
the laws and collecting the revenues" ; and hence their patriotic 
efforts to avert it. 

The next month the Detroit Free Press, a paper that ranked 
with the best and most influential said, "If there shall not be a 
change in the present seeming purpose to yield to no accomo- 
dation of the national difficulties, and if troops shall be raised 
in the North to march against the people of the South a fire in 
the rear will be opened upon such troops which will either stop 
their march altogether, or wonderfully accelerate it." 

These sentiments show that throughout the North there was 
a conviction that the policy of Lincoln's administration would 
be coercion,and that it would be insidiously inaugurated, and 
successfully, through the deceptive policy of "enforcing the laws 
and collecting the revenues." It was also known that when war 
was once inaugurated that the masses of each section would rally 
to their own sectional standard. None knew this better than 
did Lincoln and Seward. Nor were there ever two men better 
qualified to invent excuses to inflame the public mind than 
Lincoln and Seward. 

We also quote from "The Union," a most influential paper of 
Bangor, Maine, the most Northeastern State of the Republic, 
as follows : 

"The difficulties between the North and the South must be 
compromised or the separation of the States shall be peaceable. 
If the Republicans refuse to go the full length of the Critten- 
den amendment — which is the very least the South can or ought 
to take — then here in Maine, not a Democrat will be found who 
will raise his arm against his brethren of the South. From one 
end of the State to the other let the cry of Democracy be Com- 
promise or Peaceable Separation !" 

These were strong but futile utterances. The administration 
seemed blind and deaf to the perils of the hour. These and 
similar sentiments were widely copied throughout the Northern 
States with approval. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 301 

When the resolutions of the Peace Congress were presented 
in the House of Congress, Mr. Crittenden's resolutions were 
still pending in the Senate. The leading features of the two 
sets of resolutions very much resembled each other, so much 
so that Mr. Crittenden promj^tly expressed his willingness to 
accept them as a substitute for his own. He elo<:|uently urged 
their adoption. They were spurned by the majority. Both the 
Crittenden resolutions and those of the Peace Congress were de- 
feated. Some of the extreme Republicans objected to their 
being considered at all. Yet we are told in bold type by Frances 
Newton Thorpe (The Civil War p 224) : "But the South had 
no thought of listening to further compromise. For this rea- 
son all attempts at compromise failed, and compromise was the 
earnest thought and wish of such men as Crittenden of Ken- 
tucky." What perversions of history will not sectionalism make ! 
The Peace Congress was the product of a Southern State. The 
Crittenden resolutions were voted for by every Southern repre- 
sentative. Every voice from the South was for compromise 
till compromise was out of the question, made so exclusively 
by the North. 

On the 2nd day of March 1861, just two days before Lin- 
coln was inaugurated Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon, speaking 
on these resolutions, and replying to Senator Andrew Johnson 
of Tennessee, afterwards President of the United States, said: 
"The Senator of Tennessee complains of my remarks on his 
speech. He complained of the tone and temper of what I said. 
He complained that I replied at all, as I was a Northern Sena- 
tor. Mr. President, I am a citizen of this Union, and a Sena- 
tor of the Untied States. My residence is in the North, but I 
have never seen the day, and I never shall, when I will refuse 
justice as readily to the South as to the North. I know nothing 
but my country, the whole country, the Constitution and the 
equality of the States — the equal right of every man in the 
common territory of the whole country ; and by that I shall 
stand. 

"The Senator complained that 1 replied at all, as I am a 
Northern Senator, and a Democrat whom he had supported at 
the last election for a high ofifice (Vice President). Now, I was, 



302 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

as I stated at the time, surprised at the Senator's speech, because 
I understood it to be for coercion, as I think it was undersloood 
by almost every one else, except, as we are now told, by the Sena- 
tor himself ; and I still think it amounted to a coercion speech, 
notwithstandino- the soft and plausible phrases by which he de- 
scribes it, — a speech for the execution of the laws and the pro- 
tection of the Federal property. Sir, if there is, as I contend, 
the right of secession, then, whenever a State exercises that 
right this Government has no laws in that State to execute; nor 
has it any property in such State that can be protected by the 
power of this Government. In attempting, however, to sub- 
stitute the smooth phrases, 'executing the laws' and 'protecting 
public property' for coercion, for civil war, we have an im- 
portant concession : that is, that this Governmient dare not go 
before the people with a plain avowal of its real purpose and 
risk the consequences. No, sir, the policy is to inveigle the 
people of the North into civil war by making the design in 
smooth and ambiguous terms." (Congressional Globe — 36 Con- 
gress, p 1347). 

Senator Lane was a prophet as the sequel divulged. For 
"the smooth ambiguous terms, 'executing the laws' and 'pro- 
tecting public property," meant war and nothing less. The 
North saw it. The South saw it. Under the shrewd manipula- 
tions of Seward and Lincoln they accomplished their purpose. 

The Republican leaders dreaded the moral effect of the Peace 
Congress. Therefore they resolved to be represented in that body, 
that they might be instrumental if possible, in thwarting its pur- 
poses. The following letter of Z. Chandler testifies to this 
effect : 

"Washington, February 11, 18(51. 

"My dear Governor: Gen. Bingham and myself telegraphed 
you on Saturday at the request of Massachusetts and New York, 
to send delegates to the Peace Congress. They admit that we 
were right and that they were wrong ; that no Republican State 
should have sent delegates ; but they are here, and cannot get 
away, Ohio, Indiana, Rhode Island are caving in, and there is 
danger of Illinois ; and now they beg us for God's sake, to come 
to their rescue, and save the Reupblican party from rupture. I 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 303 

hope you will send stiffback men or none. The whole thing- 
was gotten up against my judgment and advice and will end 
in thin smoke. Still I hope as a matter of courtesy to some of 
your erring- brethren that you will send the delegates. Truly 
your friend. Z. Chandler. 

"His Excellency, Austin Blain." 

"P. S. — Some of the manufacturing States think that a fight 
■would be awful. Without a little blood-letting this Union will 
not, in my estimation, be worth a rush." 

This letter shows that States which had voted the Republican 
ticket were "caving in"; that is, were taking part in a plan for 
peace. This fact brought alarm to Z. Chandler, and J. K. Big- 
ham, the Senators of Michigan. They had at first opposed 
Michigan's participation in the Peace Congress. Bingham had 
objected because it was "a step toward obtaining that con- 
cession which the imperious slave-power so insolently demands. 
"They have now changed their opinion ; they are alarmed ; they 
are urgent and want stiffback men or none. What scheming, 
what intrigue, what vigilance, what concern was not theirs! 
What effort did they not put forth to save Ohio, Indiana, Rhode 
Island, and Illinois from "caving in !" 

The North had been the aggressors in every agitation. When 
the South protested, demanding only simple justice in the name 
of the compact of the States, she was denounced as "the im- 
perious slave-power"; and her demands were regarded as in- 
solent. The dominant party opposed every measure tending to 
compromise or pacification. They sought neither compromise nor 
pacification. They treated with levity all proseptcts of war, 
declaring "The Union would not be worth a rush" without 
a little blood-letting. 

Twenty-one States, fourteen of them Northern had signified 
their intention of being represented in the Peace Congress. This 
was cause for alarm. Besides the Congress was called at the 
suggestion of Virginia, a Southern State. To them this fact 
had a meaning. It deepened their concern. It called forth 
their shrewdest scheming, and their best efforts to defeat the 
purpose of that Congress. Never was purpose more laudable : — 
Peace And a Reunited Country. The hour was that of ex- 



304 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

treme peril. Was ever purpose more timely, more noble, more 
patriotic? A great crisis was at hand, and those whose duty it 
was to have correctly interpreted its nature, treated it as a 
mere trifle. War clouds dark and threatening were looming 
on the political sky. Yet they spoke of "a little blood-letting" 
as a much needed blessing, and then ruthlessly opened the 
fountains of the great deep, and the rivers of blood flowed down 
our valleys. Standing on the brink of the terrible crisis, they 
said we will collect a little "revenue," and then by the surpris- 
ing result justified themselves in emptying the Governmental 
treasury of billions of revenue. They said we will "enforce 
the law," and then in self-justification violated every law in 
both the moral and civil code. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

This address is most remarkable. Professing to be Consti- 
tutional, it rejects the voice of the only authority qualified to 
speak for that instrument. Representing the Constitution as 
ambiguous, it adopts its own construction. Professing to be 
conciliatory, it declares its policy to be that of coercion. Ten- 
der and pathetic in its appeals to the Northern masses, to the 
South it is the threatening voice of the autocrat. 

All men are human. No human is perfect. Lincoln was hu- 
man and therefore imperfect. All mankind are more or less 
ambitious. The character of the ambition of each depends upon 
his environment, and opportunities and to a great extent upon 
the stamina of the man himself. When Abraham Lincoln, on 
the 12th of January, 1848, speaking in the House of Congress, 
said : "Any people anywhere have the right to rise up, and 
shalcc off the existing government and to form a new one that 
suits them better," the presidency was not in sight. But the 
inborn ambition was his. It had elevated him from the /anks 
of the ordinary to that of an honorable representative in Con- 
gress. 

Twelve years later it was very different. In the meantime he 
had measured swords with the great Douglas on no less than 
twenty-one different platforms ; and had won distinction as a 
debater. Then it was the presidency loomed portentious before 
his eyes. Then it was that weak human nature was put to the 
test, and ambition triumphed, Al! ambition is more or less sel- 
fish, more or less unjust, more or less cruel. Its inordinate de- 
sires increase in proportion to the greatness and dignity and 
majesty of the position sought. The opportunity to be num- 
bered among the great rulers of the world too often renders 
the aspirant ruthless as to the use of means. When finally suc- 
cess has crowned the ambitious, the means are too frequent- 
ly overlooked and forgotten ; especially is this true when great 
prosperity follows in the wake of triumphant ambition. 

Napoleon, in spite of his inordinate ambition, in spite of all 
the blood through which he waded, is today ranked among the 



306 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

truly great because of his achievements. So too Lincoln, in 
spite of his defiance of the Constitution — in spite of all the fra- 
tricidal blood that made red our hills and valleys from Gettys- 
burg to Ocean Pond, is ranked among the illustrious great, be- 
cause he succeeded ; and his success was followed by unrivaled 
prosperity. As success did not make Napoleon right, so suc- 
cess did not make Lincoln right. As Napoleon would have been 
condemned to infamy had he failed, so failure would have con- 
signed Lincoln to condemnation. Wrong often overcomes right. 
But "truth crushed to earth will rise again." When Christ 
hung on the tree all the world thought his great life a failure; 
but today "the ages circle around the cross." 

As an introduction and a background to our criticism of 
this first inaugural address of Lincoln we record the testimony 
of a few very distinguihsed and very creditable witnesses — than 
whom there are no better. Madison, the father of the Consti- 
tution testified that the thirteen original States were "thirteen 
Sovereignties." Hamilton the rock-ribbed Centralist of the Phil- 
adelphia Convention, said, "The Attributes of sovereignty are 
now enjoyed by every State in the Union." Benjamin Frank- 
lin, the great diplomat, said in advocacy of the equality of suf- 
frage in the Senate, that he did it, "as the means of securing 
the sovereignty of the individual States." John Wilson, an- 
other strong centralist of the Constitutoinal Convention, said, 
"The thirteen States are thirteen sovereignties." Gouverneur 
Morris, the centralist of the same Convention, testified that "the 
Constitution is a compact ;" and "each State enjoys Sovereign 
power." Roger Sherman declared that "the Government was 
made by a number of sovereign States." Oliver Ellsworth, 
called the thirteen States, "thirteen sovereign bodies." Daniel 
Webster declared "the States are Nations." 

Who are these witnesses? They were all except Webster no 
less than the ablest and most illustrious members of the Phila- 
delphia Convention that framed, in 1787, the immortal docu- 
ment known as the great American Constitution. A majority 
of them, in that Convention, advocated a consolidated Govern- 
ment. They failed in their purpose. But loyal to the work of 
that Convention, thev declared, in honest terms, the true nature 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 307 

of the compact, and of the States that made it. Are not such 
witnesses most impartial, and hence most competent? 

The reader will recall that in the chapter just preceding this, 
we have called to the stand another array of most competent 
witnesses — all contemporary with Lincoln. They were in turn 
disappointed when Lincoln declared his policy, which, however 
"disguised," they knew to be the policy of coercion. The testi- 
mony of all these was that of the f ramers of the Constitution : 
viz : The States were sovereignties and "the right of secession did 
exist." 

In still another chapter we have shown that the Federal Gov- 
ernment itself actually taught the right of a State to 
secede for at least a decade and a half at West Point. 

Notwithstanding this great array of most competent witnesses, 
reaching from the '60's back to the very Convention that fram- 
ed the Constitution, we find Lincoln, in this first inaugural ad- 
dress, arrayed against them all — all this galaxy of superb states- 
men. What competent authority has ever proclaimed Lincoln 
a great and profound constitutional expounder? The Nation 
had scores of Statesmen in his day who excelled him as expound- 
ers of the Constitution. Had a Webster or a Douglas been 
president in 1861, there would have been no secession — no 
war. 

With this introduction we will hear Lincoln in his first in- 
augural : "I hold that in contemplation of universal law and 
of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual." The 
term "universal law" is very indefinite. It may mean all law. 
Perhaps he meant to include " a higher law" as if 
"a higher law" existed then that did not exist when the 
Constitution was framed. Perhaps he meant to include also 
"a common law" as if a common law existed then which did not 
exist at the time of the framing of the Constitution. Perhaps 
he meant to include also an "unwritten Constitution," as if un- 
written constitutions might not be numbered by the billions and 
sextdlions. Yet he couples this mysterious "universal law" 
with our Constitution. For what? To confound? Perhaps, 
to give strength and clearness to this truism, viz : "Continue 
to execute all the express provisions of our National Govern- 



308 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ment and the Union will endure forever — it being impossible 
to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the in- 
stnmient itself." 

This true utterance is all that the South ever demanded. It 
was Lincoln's forte to introduce these self-evident catch sen- 
tences to inveigle the masses. In this consisted his power as a 
debater. Observe that this truism follows that very abstruse 
proposition, "I hold in contemplation of universal law," etc. He 
did not prove the abstruse proposition. But he rendered it 
most effective by the truism that followed. 

The one constant and persistant demand of the entire South 
was that the Government should "execute all the express pro- 
visions of the Constitution, just as it had done in the days of 
Washington, Madison, Jefferson and others. This would have 
banished every thought of secession. This would have satisfied 
the South. According to this truism the South should have been 
satisfied with nothing less. The substance of every speech of 
every Senator, and of every Representative from the South in 
18G0-61, was "Give us what the Supreme Court declares is ours, 
and all questions between us will settle themselves." 

It is in order to ask here, is not a decision of the Supreme 
Court an "express provision of the Government?" Does not 
the Constitution so declare? Is any other "provision of the 
Government" more definitely and more authoritatively expressed 
Yet, who does not know that Lincoln was elected president on 
a platform confessedly antagonistic to this Court's decision? Who 
so ignorant as not to know this first inaugural address w'as also 
antagonistic to the decision of this very Court? All know our 
reference is to the decision of the Court in the Dred Scott 
case. 

What is the conclusion of this matter? Here we have Lin- 
coln stating a most important fact, and yet violating it in the 
very breath that gave it utterance. Shall we say it? He goes 
further. He declares in the most solemn manner that he has 
an "oath registered in Heaven" to comply with "the express 
provisions of the Government." Yet, he turns his back upon 
the Constitution, the one compact of the States, as revealed to 
him in the light of a decision of the Supreme Court. This 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 309 

is the testimony of the facts. All history knows it. No man 
can dispute it. The time will come when all sections of this 
great American Republic will so declare it; and too, all the en- 
lightened world will so pronounce it. 

This same inaugural address next declares: "Again, if the 
United States be not a government proper, but an association of 
States in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a contract, 
be peacefully unmade by less than all the parties who made it? 
One party to the contract may break it so to speak; but does 
it not require all to rescind it?" Madison and Hamilton and 
other illustrious contemporaries of the framing of the Constitu- 
tion have answered "no." As we have seen Webster also an- 
swered "no." There is also one great fact of history which 
says "no," with no uncertain sound. That fact is, it was act- 
ually "dissolved by less than all" in 1788. What a refutation 
of Lincoln's declaration is this! Yet, this is one of the mis- 
tatements that electrified and unifiecf) the North against the 
South in 1861. 

Not only was the compact of 1778 rescinded by less than all 
but a new one was formed in which the express right of a State 
to withdraw from the Union was sanctioned by all. It is again 
the strong testimony of fact that New York, and Virginia and 
Rhode Island incorporated this right in their ordinances of vat- 
ification. Why did not the ten States enter protest against thC 
ratifying ordinances of these three States? Because they were 
a unit in the belief that the Constitution already clearly granted 
this right. It is absolutely assured that no State objected to 
the admission of New York, Virginia and Rhode Island because 
of this express provision. It follows therefore, that this "ex- 
press provision" of the three States only emphasized what all 
the States to the Compact knew to be an undeniable right of 
each State. 

Thus is written on the very face of the contract the consent 
of all for at least three States to "rescind it." Therefore if 
"the consent of all" was required for "less than all to rescind 
it" was not the consent of all here given? 

Lincoln next assumes that he has sustained his position as 
above set forth, and adds: "The Union is much older than the 



310 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Constitution. It was formed, in fact by the articles of associa- 
tion in 1774. It was matured, and continued by the Declara- 
tion of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the 
faith of all the thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged 
that it should be perpetual by the Articles of 1778. And finally, 
in 1788, one of the declared objects for ordaining and estab- 
lishing th^ Constitution was to form a miore perfect Union." 

Here we are told in plain words that "the Union is much older 
than the Constitution;" and that "it was formed in 1774." The 
facts declare there was no union of States formed in 1774, un- 
less he means a Union of friendly relations. If he means this 
his language is ambiguous and hence deceptive. 

But what are the facts? It was in 1774 that the famous Bos- 
ton Port Bill was passed by the British Parliament. At the 
same time the charter of the Massachusetts Colony was changed 
without that Colony's consent. Then it was general alarm 
spread throughout all the colonies ; and the cry went forth, "The 
Cause of Boston is the cause of all." Virginia, the Old Domin- 
ion, appealed to all the colonies to meet in Convention in Phil- 
adelphia on the oth of September, 1774. With one exception 
all the colonies met in Philadelphia on that day. They met as 
Colonies, not as States. 

The object of the convention is given in Elliott's Debates, 
Vol. 1, p. 42, et sequens. According to this high authoriy the 
powers conferred on the delegates from Virginia were, "to pro- 
cure redress for the much injured Province of Maassachusetts 
Bay, to secure British America from the ravage and ruin of 
arbitrary taxes, and speedily procure the return of that harmony 
and Union so beneficial to the whole Empire, and so ardently 
desired by all British America." Clearly the object was not 
to form a Union; nor was a Union formed. 

The powers conferred on the delegates of Maryland were, 
"To attend a general Congress to assist one plan of conduct 
operating on the commercial connection of the colonies with 
the mother country for the relief of Boston and the preserva- 
tion of American liberty." 

The powers conferred on the delegates of South Carolina 
were as follows : "To consider the acts lately passed and bills 



RICHAEDSON'S DEFENSE OP THE SOUTH 311 

pending in Parliament with regard to the Port of Boston and 
Colony of Massachusetts Bay ; which acts and bills, in the pre- 
cedent and consequence, affect the whole continent of America." 

Simdlar powers were conferred on all the delegates of all the 
twelve colonies represented in this convention of 1774. It will 
be seen that the thirteen colonies were called "colonies" in the 
instructions given the delegates to this convention. Hience the 
Union of 1774 was a Union of colonies — this and no more. 
Plainly the object of this union was "to procure redress for the 
"much injured Province of Msasachusetts Bay." If still col- 
onies, recognizing and acknowledging their allegiance to Great 
Britain, how could it be claimed that they had now formed a 
"Union of States? It is absurd. 

But if there should yet be a lingering doubt in the mind of 
the most skeptical let us remove that doubt by quoting from 
Judge Story, good Northern authority, Vol. 1, Book 2, chap. 1, 
giving facts which place the question beynod the shadow of 
doubt. Judge Story says, "New Hampshire, in December 1775, 
formed a Government of her own which was manifestly in- 
tended to be temporary, 'during,' as they then said, 'the unhappy 
and unnatural contest with Great Britain ;' " that "Virginia on 
the 29 of June, 1776, by a Convention of delegates declared 'the 
Government of this colony as formerly exercised by Great Brit- 
ain is totally dissolved ;' " that South Carolina, as a colony, 
did the same thing in 1776," not giving the month; that New 
Jersey, as a colony, did likewise on the 2nd of July, 1776. In 
all the cases of the action of the Colonies Judge Story testifies 
that each colony expressly declared for itself that its action 
"should be void upon a reconciliation with Great Britain," show- 
ing most conconclusively, and most clearly, that as late as the 
2nd of July 1776, the colonies had not yet despaired of reconcil- 
iation, with the mother country. Is it supposed that the Colon- 
ies formed a union of States while they hoped for reconcilia- 
tion with Great Britain? Did Lincoln know history? 

What now were the results of the deliberations of the first 
Convention of the Colonies in 1774? They formally declared 
the indefensible rights of all the colonies. They recommended 
to the colonies a policy to be adopted by each if one or more 



ai2 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

of them should suffer wrong by the mother country, as did the 
colony of Massachusetts Ray. This convention, after a few 
minor details, was dissolved with the recommendation that all 
the colonies meet again of the 10th of May 17T5. Thus ended 
the first convention, or Congress of the Colonies, not States, 
President Lincoln to the contrary, notwithstanding. 

In compliance with this recommendation all of the thirteen 
colonies convened by deputies on the 10th of May 1775. It was 
through this convention that the first union of the States was 
formed. Nor was this Union formed till after they had, by 
the Declaration of Independence, declared the colonies no long- 
er such, but each a free and independent State. x'Vnd not then 
did they form a political Union of the States till 1777, during 
the war of ffie Revolution, in which all the States were strug- 
gling for separate independence from the dominion of Eng- 
land. This proposed union of 1777 was not ratified by the 
States till 1778 ; and then by only eleven of the thirteen. The 
two States not yet ratifying it were Delaware and Maryland, the 
former ratifying it in February 1779, and the latter in March 1781. 
Moreover Maryland, had instructed her delegates to this conven- 
tion to vote against all the propositions of Virginia and "to seek 
reconciliation with Great Britain." Virginia had thus instruct- 
ed her delegates : "Resolved, unanimously, that the delegates 
appointed to represent this colony in general Congress be in- 
structed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United 
Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegi- 
ance to, or dependence upon the Crown of Parliament or Great 
Britain ; and that they give the assent of this colony to such 
declaration and to whatever measure may be thought proper 
and necessary by Congress, for forming foreign alliances, and a 
Confederation of the Colonies at such time and in the manner 
as to them shall seem best. Provided that the power of form- 
ing Government for, and the regulation of the internal concerns 
of each colony be left to the respective colonial legislatures." 
This resolution was adopted on the 15th of May 1775, at Wil- 
liamsburg. The State of Maryland entered this Congress hop- 
ing and working for reconcihation with England. Hence it re- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 313 

quired time, labor and discussion to induce her to ratify the Con- 
stitution. 

It is universally conceded that no union was established till 
the Constitution, the basis of the Union, was ratified. On the 
9th of July, 1778, the delegates of all the States had signed in 
ratification except New Jersey and Delaware and Maryland. 
Although Maryland in common with the other twelve States 
had declared herself a free and independent State, she did not 
ratify the Articles of Confederation till the 1st of March, 1781, 
almost five years after her declaration of independence. This 
particular Constitution required ratification by all the States be- 
fore it became effective. Therefore it was not effective till the 
1st of March 1781. Then, and not till then, was Congress en- 
abled to form foreign alliances in the name of the United thir- 
teen States, known as the first Confederation. How "much old- 
er" then was "the Union than the Constitution" on which it 
was based ? 

As for the Declaration of Independence it was just what it 
claimed to be — no more, no less, viz : "That these United Col- 
onies (not States) are, and of right ought to be, free and in- 
dependent States ; and that they are absolved from all allegiance 
to the British Crown, and all political connection between them, 
and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be totally dis- 
solved." If there is a declaration of a permanent political Union 
of the States in these resolutions history does not know it; and 
no man has ever found it. On the contrary we have just seen 
that Maryland refused to ratify the compact for nearly five years 
after having declared herself a "free and independent" State. 
Therefore while these resolutions formed a very important part 
in the proceedings of that Convention they did not constitute 
the thirteen Colonies that many States united under one com- 
pact. They were a great step toward a Union but not the Un- 
ion. They were thirteen Colonies on the 7th of June, 1776, when 
these resolutions were introduced by Richard Henry Lee ac- 
cording to the instructions of the Colony of Virginia. They 
were thirteen Colonies till the 4th of Jul,y 1776, when the res- 
olutions were adopted. That same 4th of July, 1776, was the 
birthday of thirteen "free and independent States— States in 



314 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the same sense as Great Britain was "a State;" for in the same 
sentence in which they declare themselves States they say," and 
the State of Great Britain," thus defining what they meant by a 
State. If Great Britain was sovereign, so were they. If Great 
Britain had the right to will, to decide, to decree, and to act, 
so had they. If Great Britain could form an alliances, so could 
they. In short whatever Great Britain could do as a Sovereign 
State they could do. 

Yes, "the then thirteen States plighted their faith and engaged 
that it (Union of 1778-81) should be perpetual by the Articles 
of Confederation in 1778." As free and independent States, 
or Nations, or Sovereigns, they were now qualified to form alli- 
ances with each other. It was no uncommon form for Nations 
or States, in forming treaties or leagues, to declrae them to be 
"forever" or perpetual. In accordance with this form these 
thirteen States in forming their league, or compact, declared it 
to be "perpetual." 

But was it "perpetual?" The power that makes can unmake. 
"Unum quoque dissolutor so mode quo colligatur." The very 
fact that a State, or Nation, has the power to treat with another 
State, or Nation, is mathematically conclusive evidence that it 
has the power to annul the treaty. The thirteen States had the 
power to form a compact or treaty in 1778, for they exercised 
it. Therefore in 1787 they had the power to annul this treaty, 
and they exercised it unmolested by any external force. They 
did it as sovereigns, one at a time. They did it too "by less 
than all." 

All know that "one of the declared objects of ordaining and 
establishing the Constitution was to form a more perfect Un- 
ion;" and therefore not the identical Union of 1778. It was 
composed of the same States, free, independent and sovereign, 
cherishing the same jealousy as to their reserved rights. It was 
therefore a Unfon of the same States, but not the Union of the 
identical Government, because the compact, or the basis of the 
Union, was different. The States had conferred enlarged pow- 
ers on their agent, the Federal Government. The older Gov- 
ernment required the sanction of all the States to form a Union ; 
the new required only nine. The other Government was not 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 315 

formed till all had ratified it. The new government was actual- 
ly formed by eleven States, leaving North Carolina and Rhode 
Island outside as the remnant of the older Union. 

With this action of the eleven States what became of the per- 
petual union of 1778 under the clause which provided, that: 
"The Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed 
by every State, and the Union (be perj>etual) nor shall any 
alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them unless 
such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States 
and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State?" 
The Contract of 1778 was broken and broken without the con- 
sent of North Carolina and Rhode Island. Without their con- 
sent a new Government was formed, leaving them out, a small 
remnant of the Union of 1778. 

What now becomes of Lincoln's argument that when "an as- 
sociation of States is made by contract merely" "it can not be 
immade by less than all of the parties to it ?" The very history of 
the Confederation annihiliates his logic. But faulty as it was 
the masses of the North received it as genuine in all faith. Thus 
error disguised as truth marshaled more than two and one-half 
millions of men against a few hundred thousand Constitution — 
loving patriots, and plundered and burned their homes, and 
slaughtered thousands of their bravest heroes — heroes who would 
have died at any time in defense of the Constitution as construed 
by Hamilton and Madison and Washington and their com- 
patriots. 

From these incontrovertable facts, just given, the conclusion 
is inevitable that Mr. Lincoln's deduction from the above prem- 
ises of his are erroneous and therefore wrong. Already the 
first half century since the war has declared he was wrong as to 
facts and logic. Each decade following will strengthen - this 
declaration. When the first full century since the great war 
shall have looked back upon the unobscured truth this utter- 
ance of Lincoln will have been declared revolutionary, and an 
undisputed declaration of war : viz : "I therefore consider that 
in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken 
and to the extent of mv ability I shall take care, as the Consti- 



316 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Un- 
ion be faithfully executed in all the States." 

On the 19th day of May, 1860, a great National political con- 
vention assembled in Baltimore, and nominated John Bell of 
Tennessee for president, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts 
as vice-president. That party declared it to be, "both the part 
of patriotism and duty to recognize no political principle other 
than the Constitution of the country, the Union of the States 
and the enforcement of the laws," because another great politi- 
cal partv was in the field with a platform against the Constitu- 
tion. At the head of this party stood Abraham Lincoln. This 
is the man that declares he is enjoined by the constitution to en- 
force "the laws of the Union" "in all the States" without naming 
the enjoining clause in that instrument. Is it any wonder that 
his Construction was at variance with that of three-fourths of a 
century; with that of the best legal talent of his day? Is it 
any wonder the South rejected his construction? 

Upon what ground could Mr. Lincoln say, "I trust this will 
not be a menace?" Vast meetings of citizens throughout all 
the North declared it was not only a menace, but war. All in- 
telligent men knew its full meaning. To say that Lincoln him- 
self did not know it, would be to impeach his intelligence. It 
is well known that Lincoln was not wanting in intellect. 

If President Lincoln had taken his own advice there would 
have been no disunion — no war, viz. : "Before entering upon so 
grave a matter as the destruction of our National fabric with all 
its benefits, its memories, its hopes, would it not be wise to as- 
certain why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step when 
there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from 
have no real existence? Will you while the certain ills you fly 
to — are greater than all the real ones you fly from — will you 
risk the commission of so great a mistake?" 

Pause here before these remarkable utterances — remarkable 
for their aptness to pacify and win the North while equally 
adapted to repulse the South. 

Consider who were responsible for the conditions then exist- 
ing. Was it not the party then in power? Was it not that 
party, sectional to the last man in its ranks? PVom whose lips 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 317 

f^ll these utterances? Did they not fall from the lips of that 
party's chief? Do not these facts convince us that the Republi- 
can Party was the prime cause for the disturbed conditions of 
the Sixties? Did they not use slavery as the justifying occa- 
sion? And had not the North been proslavery for more than a 
full century ? Do we ever read of any large slave-holder there 
freeing his slaves voluntarily? Did not the census of 1860 
show that the number of free negroes in the North and South 
were about equally divided? Has this fact no tongue? Does 
it not declare that the North sold her slaves to the Southern 
planters? Was slavery less wrong in the sight of Heaven than 
the full purse received in exchange for slaves? If the institu- 
tion was "a sin and a curse" did not the North share equally 
with the South in that "sin and curse?" Upon what ground 
of justice did Lincoln and his party lift holy hands to high Heaven 
and assume supreme innocence as to this institution in 1860-61 ? 
What boldness, what afTront, what deception was theirs? How 
dared they to put on the garb of innocence and register "an 
oath in Heaven" that it was their duty and their legal right to 
lecture, to threaten, to abuse, to curse, to plunder, to destroy, 
and to murder the inhabitants of the South ? 

Does the justice of Heaven accommodate itself to the designs 
of a political party without regard to the responsibilities of that 
party? If not how did President Lincoln and his party recon- 
cile the fact of their open rebellion against the Third Great 
Fundamental Department of the Government, as expressed in 
their platform and repeated in this inaugural address? Do 
not all men know that the Dred Scott decision declared the Re- 
publican Party platform unconstitutional? Do not all know 
that Lincoln derided that decision as "a sort of decision ;" that 
"it was made by a bare majority?" Do not all know that "bare 
majority" was "7 to 2?' How did Mr. Lincoln reconcile his 
two oaths, the one registered in Washington and the other "in 
Heaven?" The more important question is, how did he recon- 
cile his rebellion against the Supreme Court decision and his 
oath to support the Constitution? Shall we refrain to ask how 
he reconciled his express enmity to the Constitution and his oath 



318 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF IHE SOUTH 

to obey the Constitution? Is not antagonism to the Supreme 
Court's decision also antagonism to the Constitution? 

Nothing protects error so well as being found in company 
with fact. Hence the next utterance of this remarkable address 
is a most important fact — a fact upon which all issues hang, viz : 
"All profess to be content in the Union, if all the Constitutional 
rights can be maintained." This is a universal proposition. 
Hence it includes the South. It was the declaration heard in 
every Southern home, in every Southern valley, on every South- 
ern hill-top, and upon every Southern navigable stream through- 
out all that disturbed section. Since the North also professed 
the same thing was there not strong ground for reconciliation? 
Why then was reconciliation denied? Was it the fault of the 
South? Had she not proposed terms of reconciliation? Had 
not all of them been rejected by the North? Were not commis- 
sioners from the South in Washington at this very time in the 
interest of peace? Were they not made to hope in vain, only 
to be denied? Did not the "Peace Conference" originate in the 
South? Were not all its propositions turned down by the vic- 
torious party? 

The next utterance in this address is a truism, viz : "But no 
organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically ap- 
plicable to every question which may occur in practical admin- 
istration." Why this truism? May it not be intended as a 
background for these questions and answers of his own : "Shall 
fugitives from labor be surrendered by National or State author- 

ityf The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress 

prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not 
expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territor- 
ies? The Constitution does not expressly say." 

We have heavily italicized these questions and answers that the 
very italicizing may suggest the just criticism. Both the ques- 
tions and answers are pregnant with inherent weakness. We 
hesitate to add words of our own to the criticism of the italics. We 
hesitate out of respect for a great name — a name revered and 
honored throughout the civilized world. Nor would we criti- 
cize them further but for the fact that other great names, equally 
as renowned and revered, are involved in the correct answers 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 319 

to these questions. Not only the honor and integrity of great 
names are involved but the honor and integrity of a great section 
of enlightened people are involved also. 

What school boy does not know when "the Constitution does 
not expressly say" it means the States? Who so ignorant as 
not to know that the Constitution does not authorize the Federal 
Government to do anything except what it expressly says it can 
do? We are not criticizing Mr. Lincoln. He is criticizing him- 
self by his questions and answers. Who has lived up to the age 
of maturity in this free and enlightened Republic of ours, and 
has read so little as not to know the Supreme Court, in 1857, 
had answered in words as plain as it could use, the question : 
"May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories?" It is with 
sincere regret that we are compelled by his own official words 
to view the great Lincoln in such a light. Shall we judge from 
this inaugural address that this is his normal state of mind on 
slavery ? 

All know, too, that the same Supreme Court at the same time 
in 1857, answered with equal clearness Mr. Lincoln's third ques- 
tion, viz : "Must Congress protect slavery in the Territor- 
ies " 

Were these questions and answers of Mr. Lincoln's due to ig- 
norance? Had he not criticized and derided that decision in 
his famous Cooper Institute Speech? They were not due to 
ignorance. Then what? When a full century from the day 
of their utterance shall have been ushered in as the impartial 
judge, the true motive of these questions and answer will have 
been unmasked without mercy or commisseration. 

Francis Newton Thorpe, and various other Northern His- 
torian's, realizing the weakness of Mr. Lincoln's position, have 
attempted to defend him, not by an appeal to the Constitution, 
but by a so-called "higher law." They forget that no law, how- 
ever sacred, can justly be called "a higher law" which sanc- 
tions the violation of a consecrated oath. It ceases to be "a 
higher law" the moment it sanctions the violation of a sacred 
oath. Every officer, high or low, of the United States Govern- 
ment swears fealty to the Constitution, the one binding tie of 
all the States. How absurd such an appeal! 



320 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

From the foregoing facts it follows that Lincoln's construc- 
tion of the silence of the Constitution is altogether wrong. There 
fore all his conclusions based on these false constructions are 
wrong. One of them is this : "If the minority will not acquiesce, 
the majority must, or the Government must cease" — another 
plain declaration of war without constitutional authority. 

In the name of the great South section, true to every word of 
the Constitution, we repeat that had the plain meaning of the 
Constitution prevailed as construed by the Supreme Court and 
by the North and South before the entrance of the Republican 
Party on the scene, there would have been no secession in 1860- 
61 on the part of the South. Has not the South by high North- 
ern authorities been styled "Eighteenth Century reactionists?" 
What is the meaning of this accusation? Is not the plain mean- 
ing this : that the South in the 60's held the views entertained 
by the able and illustrious statesmen who framed the Constitu- 
tion and their contemporary statesmen? Was this a crime? If 
so, was it a crime of such magnitude as to invite the horrors of 
war? If this was a crime the South of the 60's was guilty with 
Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and the two Adamses and all 
that line of great characters whose virtues and statesmanship 
have enriched the world. What a galaxy of great names gather 
about the South of the 60's, and say to her, "We share your 
guilt !" 

Who now doubts the South's sincerity in the Sixties? Who? 
Who doubts her sincere desire for peace? Did she not exhaust 
every honorable means to secure it? Was it not a Southern 
State that suggested "the Peace Congress?" Was it not a 
Southern man that introduced the famous Crittenden resolu- 
tions? Was it not Southern representatives who voted for them 
in Congress? Did not the South declare herself ready to adopt 
any honorable proposition for peace? What then did Lincoln 
mean when he said, "In your hands, my dissatisfied country- 
men, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war?" Did 
it not mean "There is no way for you to avoid civil war ex- 
cept by submission to unconstitutional terms?. Had not a num- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 321 

ber of Southern States already seceded? Did he not know 
their manhood and their new allegiance now forbade submis- 
sion? Therefore he meant war, and the sequel shows he meant 
war. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
WHO CAUSED THE WAR? 

In the last chapter we saw that the thirteen orig-inal Colonies 
declared themselves "States in the same sense that Great Brit- 
ain is a State." That meant they were sovereignties in the full 
sense. Therfore the compact they formed was one of sover- 
eign States. We have also given in the same chapter Ney's 
legal maxim : "Every thing is dissolved by the same means 
it is constituted." To this we add the same well established 
legal truth as given by Broom in his legal maxims, p. 407, in 
these words : "Nothing is so consonant to natural equity as 
that every contract should be dissolved by the same means that 
rendered it binding." 

The thirteen original States formed a compact among them- 
selves by adopting ordinances ratifying the same Constitution, 
each in its own way, and at its own time and place. Thus they 
rendered the common Constitution "binding." In the same way, 
or "by the same means" the eleven seceding States of the South 
in 1860-61 "Dissolved" this compact. They therefore acted 
within their legal rights and the United States Government had 
no more right to coerce them than she would have to coerce 
England for dissolving a compact between her and England. If 
we take the definition of a State as given by the thirteen origi- 
nal States, there is no evading the conclusion. Their definition 
is the only true one since they Constituted the States. There- 
fore the conclusion is inevitable. 

If then it is inevitably true that the eleven Southern States 
in 1860-61, had the legal and natural right to dissolve the com- 
pact just as they formed it; and at the same time expressed a 
desire that their dissolution should be peaceful, who caused the- 
war? 

They not only "dissolved" the Union "by the same means by 
which they constituted it," but they also sought by all honor- 
able means to make their dissolution a peaceful one. This hon- 
est desire they declared both by words and acts. They imme- 
diately sent commissioners to Washington in the interest of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH ,323 

peace and goodwill. These commissioners were encouraged to 
hope, only to be deceived. Who then caused the war? 

Not only did their words and acts most emphatically declare 
for a peaceful separation, but their unpreparedness for war most , 
earnestly proclaimed their desires for peace. They were an ag- 
ricultural people, inexperienced as to war. They were without 
arms and the means of manufacturing them. In short they 
were without all the essentials of war except brave hearts and a 
conviction of right. Would such a people, under such circum- 
stances, deliberately inaugurate war' Who then caused the 
war? 

The real cause of the war lay in tlie violation of the Consti- 
tution. It is confessed that our political organization was more 
or less complex. But its complexity was not at fault. It was 
its plain precepts that were violated. 

1. The assumption by the dominant party that the silence of 
the Constitution conferred authority upon the Federal Govern- 
ment was ■ a plain violation of the Constitution. No reputable 
historian. North or South, denies this. Yet the silence of the 
Constitution was the main basis upon which Lincoln, in his in- 
augural, built his doctrine of restriction and coercion. But re- 
striction and coercion were unconstitutional. Who caused the 
war? 

2. Every Compromise was a violation of the Constitution. 
This cannot be denied. Each compromise was the result of ag- 
gression, and it is an indisputable fact of history that all aggres- 
sion came from the North. Aggression, according to Webster, 
means "the first attack." Every "first attack" upon the Consti- 
tution was made by the North, and the South, in consenting to 
a compromise through her love for the Union, also became vio- 
lators of that instrument in a reluctant sense. On the part of 
the South it was a reluctant yielding of her rights to secure 
peace. On the part of the North it was pure and simple aggres- 
sion to prevent the extension of slave territory. The South 
can truthfully assert that in no other way did she ever violate 
the Constitution. This is her proud boast ; her impregnable de- 
fense against the false charges that she caused the war. 



324 RTCHARDSON-S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

3. The refusal to obey the universally acknowledged decision 
of the Supreme Court was another and indisputable violation of 
the Constitution. All know that Lincoln rebelled against this de- 
cision in his celebrated Cooper Institute Speech ; that he next 
led a great political party in rebellion against it ; that he was 
elected president as an avowed enemy against it ; that as such 
he was inaugurated president ; and that as president his declared 
policy was against it. At first it was Lincoln and the Republi- 
;an party who opposed the decision of this Court. After that 
subtle deceptive inaugural address to which we have referred, 
it was Lincoln, the Republican party and a practically united 
North. Who, then, caused the war? 

4. The Constitution was violated — yea more, it was supplant- 
ed, it was rendered obsolete — by a false "higher law," a "false 
common law ;" and a false "imwritten Constitution," etc. As 
for the South, she knew but one Constitution ; the one com.- 
mon to all the States alike : the one ratified by all the States in 
the same manner, — by separate State Conventions ; the one Con- 
<ititution to which all the States alike had sworn eternal fidelity. 

The South knew of "a higher law" that existed when Adam 
i.nd Eve walked together in the Garden of Eden ; "a higher law" 
that existed in all succeeding ages ; "a higher law" written on 
the tablets of human hearts, rendering more sacred and more 
binding the oaths of the States and of their citizens, to obey 
its God-given precepts ; "a higher law" that uses human statutes 
and human governments, as "ordained of God," to advance and 
strengthen its influence and power among men ; a higher law that 
was never designed by its divine author to supplant and render 
obsolete human statutes, human institutions and human govern- 
ments: "a higher law" that gives aid and strength to human laws, 
but never supplants them. 

The South knew of "a common law" a rule of action "ira- 
memorially received and recognized by judicial tribunals :" a 
common law "which derives its authority from long usage, or 
established custom," not from the supposed change of convic- 
tions of men, — not from "the ignorance of foreigners" as to our 
Federal Constitution ; but a common law that reaches back "be- 
yond the memorv of man," and was threefore in full force when 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 325 

our fathers wrote the Constitution and which aided them in 
framing that "most wonderful" pohtical document. This com- 
mon law did not then render the Constitution obsolete. It es- 
tablished it. What credence then are we to give to the very re- 
markable claim that it changed its nature in 1860-61, and ren- 
dered the Constitution obsolete? It was not the "Common Law," 
unchangeable by its very nature and definition, that then render- 
ed our Constitution obsolete, and inaugurated what our own Su- 
preme Court has pronounced to be the greatest "Civil War" of 
the world ; but a so-called false common law, based on a pre- 
sumed, not a verified, change of human opinions as to the real 
chaj-acter of our Republican form of Government ; a so-called 
common law was not in the least sense common, but sectional 
to the core. Who then caused the war? 

As to an "Unwritten Ctmstitution" the South was in absolute 
ignorance of it till its existence was proclaimed and it was de- 
fined by Francis Newton Thorpe in "The Civil War from a 
Northern standpoint." Was it treason to disobey a Constitu- 
tion of which one had never heard? This was the false charge 
made in the '60's. Treason is rebellion against the Constitution 
that represents the Government it established. That Constitu- 
tion. — that Government, — was the one formed in Philadelphia 
in 1787. To this Constitution all history in unbroken evidenc." 
attests the fidelity of the South. Even the North admits this 
in calling the South of the Sixties "Eighteenth Century reac- 
tionists." Who then caused the war? 

The charge made to the world by the United States Govern- 
n^ent that the Southern States in their State conventions, and in 
their general Convention at Montgomery, were "Conspirators 
against the principles of the United States Government," was 
a declaration of war. For who has ever heard of a bona fide 
conspiracy against a reputable Government that did not call 
forth the strong arm of the Government to crush it? If that 
clijirge, as published to the world, was true the South deserved 
the avenging hand of war. If it was a false charge the South 
did not ni.erit the sword and the torch. 

The open, frank, earnest, and patriotic manner in which these 
States had protested against the infringements upon their Con- 



326 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

stitutional rights refutes the charge. When all protests had 
failed, and all efforts at compromise had proved futile, they met 
in conventions of their own. These Conventions were advertis- 
ed, in advance, to the world ; and the objects for which they 
were called were known of all men. Conspiracy is born in secret, 
but there were no secrets in any of these Conventions. They 
had grievances. These they met to discuss and to devise reme- 
dies. Their debates upon the question of secession were able, 
earnest, and spirited. All the speakers were a unit as to the 
right of secession, but a large minoritv, and among them some 
of the ablest statesmen of the South, did not believe in the policy 
of secession as the best remedy Strange to say this fact lead 
Lincoln and his party to believe that the South was divided on 
the question of the legal right of secession. 

In the Convention of the States which met at Montgomery 
there was the same open, manly, frank, and dignified discussion 
of questions of vital importance pertaining to their common in- 
terest. All their proceedings were published to the world. They 
concealed nothing. The very Constitution this Convention de- 
vised and submitted to the States for ratification, is a standing 
refutation of the charge of conspiracy. Of this Constitution 
the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens speaks in these pertinent words: 
"The whole document utterly negatives the idea which many 
have been active in endeavoring to put in the enduring form of 
history, that the Convention at Montgomery was nothing but a 
set of "Conspirators' whose object was the overthrow of the 
])rinciples of the Constitution of the United States, and the erec- 
tion of a great 'slave oligarchy' instead of the free institutions 
thereby secured and guaranteed. This work of the Montgom- 
ery Convention with that of the provisional Government, will 
ever remain, not only a monument of the widom, forecast, and 
statesmanship of the men who constituted it, but an everlasting 
refutation of the charges which have been brought against them. 
These works together show clearly that their only leading ob- 
ject was to sustain, uphold, and perpetuate the fundamental 
principles of the Constitution of the United States." 

This Constitution was modeled after that of the United States. 
The preamble to each is substantially the same, almost in the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 327 

identical words. No changes in the entire instrument were 
made except such as experience had dictated. It stands also 
as an impregnable bulwark of defense against the often repeated 
charge that "the Confederacy was founded on slavery," that 
■'its corner-stone was slavery." "Property in slaves, already 
existing, was recognized and guaranteed, just as it was in the 
Constitution of the United States." But the "extension of sla- 
very," the cause of great complaint by Lincoln and his party, 
was more effectually prevented by the Constitution of the Con- 
federacy than by that of the United States, as witnessed by the 
instruments themselves. In the 9th section of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States are these words : "The migration or im- 
portation of such persons as any of the States now existing 
shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Con- 
gress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; 
but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importations not ex- 
ceeding ten dollars for each person." 

From the 9th section of the Confederate Constitution we 
quote as follows : 1. "The importation of negroes of the Afri- 
can race from any foreign country other than the slave-holding 
States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby 
forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall 
effectually prevent the same." 

2. "Congress shall also have the power to prohibit the intro- 
duction of slaves from any State, not a member of, or Terri- 
tory not belonging to this Confederacy." 

These extracts speak for themselves. That form the Federal 
Constitution declares the "importation of slaves" shall not be 
prohibited prior to the year 1808 ;" and then follow "but a tax 
or duty may be imposed on such importations, not exceeding 
ten dollars for each person." What is the meaning of this But*'- 
clause? Does it not virtually annul the preceeding clause by 
further legalizing the importation of slaves ? If it does not fur- 
ther legalize the importation of slaves, what is the meaning of 
the right to impose "a tax or duty on such importations ?" The 
fact cannot be denied that after 1808 Congress still had the pow- 
er to encourage the importation of slaves. 



328 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE. OF THE SOlfTH 

But what is the voice of the extract from tlie Confederate 
Constitution? Its clear-cut meaning is "The importation of 
negroes" from Africa "is hereby forbidden," — positively forbid- 
den; and Congress was required to enforce this mandate of the 
States through their Constitution. This clause gives Congress 
but one discretion, that of admitting slaves from any State or 
Territory of the United States ; and this one discretion is the 
language of friendship, not of war. 

As the charge of "Conspiracy" was a declaration of war, so 
was that of ''insurrection," of "rebellion* "and of treason. When 
the speaker and other members of the Burgesses cried "Treason, 
treason," to the impassioned words of the fiery Henry they knew 
well the meaning of treason, and so did the bold and impetuous 
Henry as he finished his sentence: "May profit by their exam- 
ple. If this be treason, make the most of it." So too the 
Colonies knew it meant war when they rebelled against Great 
Britain ; and the seven long years of war were the result. When 
the cr}' of "conspiracy," "insurrection," "rebellion," and "trea- 
son" went forth from the White House, all the world knew it 
meant war, and only war ; and the f6ur succeeding years pre- 
sented tlie bloodiest page of history. Who then caused the 
war? 

Let us next consider the attitude of the Confederate States. 
Perhaps no better evidence can be produced than extracts from 
the inaugural address of Mr. Davis as President of the Provi- 
sional Government, delivered on the 18th of February, 1861. 
He says, "The TTeclared purpose of the Compact of the Union 
from which we have withdrawn, was to 'establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquality, provide for the common defence, promote 
the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and posterity;'" and when in the judgment of the Sov- 
ereign States now composing this Confederacy, it had been per- 
verted from the purpose for which it was ordained, and had 
ceased to answer the ends for which it was established, a peace- 
ful appeal to the ballot-box declared that, so far as they were con- 
cerned, the Government create^ by that compact should cease 
to exist. In this, they m.erely asserted a right which the Decla- 
ration of Independency of 177 G, had defined to be inalienable. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 329 

Of the time and occasion for its exercise they, as Sovereigns 
were the final judges each of itself. The impartial and enlight- 
ened verdict of mankind will vindicate the rectitude of our con- 
duct, and He who knows the hearts of men, will judge of the 
sincerity with which we labored to preserve the Govermnent of 
our fathers in its spirit. The right solemnly proclaimed at the 
birth of the States, and which has Ix^en affirmed in the Bills of 
Rights of States, subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789, 
undeniably recognizes in the ]>eople the power to resume the 
authority delegated for tlie purpose of Government. Thus the 
Sovereign States here represented, proceeded to form this Con- 
federacy, and it is by abuse of language that their act has been 
denominated a Revolution. They formed a new alliance, but 
within each State its Government has remained, and the rights 
of persons and property have not been disturbed. The agent 
through whom they communicated with foreign nations, is 
changed ; but this does not necessarily interrupt their interna- 
tional relations." 

Is there any declaration of war in words like these ? Consider 
this : "The}- merely asserted a right which the Declaration of 
Independence of 1?T(), had declared to be inalienable," that is 
cannot or should not, be alienated, surrendered or transferred to 
another." Is the Declaration of Independence good authority? 
Then who can doubt the correctness of this position? If it can- 
not be doubted, who caused the war? 

Consider these other words: "He who knows the hearts of 
men, will judge of the sincerity with which we labored to pre- 
serve the Government of our Fathers in its spirit." History is 
full of the sacrifices made by the South, and of her efforts to 
preserve the Union. This assertion can not be challenged. It 
greets the patriot's eye on every page of the history of the 
times. 

Ag?!in : "It is an abuse of language that their act has been 
denominated a Revolution. They formed a new alliance, but 
within each State its Government has remained, and the rights 
of persons and property have not been disturbed. The agent 
through whom they communicated with foreign powers is 
changed ; but this does not necessarily interrupt their interna- 



330 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tional relations." With what dignity of speech does Mr. Davis 
here meet the charge of Mr. Lincoln that he leads a revolution 
against the Federal Government ! The assertion of a revolution 
"is an abuse of language." "They," the Southern States, have 
•'formed a new alliance" as was their right according to the 
Declaration of Independence. The United States Government 
had been their "agent through whom they communicated with 
foreign nations," but now these States have met and appointed 
another agent for this purpose. If the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence be true this is not revolution. By it Massachusetts 
freed her slaves to the surprise of her citizens. For its truth 
every State in the Union vouches. Then who caused the war ? 

We quote further from this inaugural address: "Sustained 
by the consciousness that the transition from the former Union 
to the present Confederacy, has not proceeded from a disregard 
on our part of just obligations, or any failure to perform any 
Constitutional duty; moved by no interest or passion to invade 
the rights of others; anxious to cultivate peace and commerce 
with all the nations, if we may not hope to avoid war, we may 
at least expect that posterity will acquit us of having needlessly 
engaged in it." 

No bugle note of war is heard in these words: But there 
is a solemn protestation that the Confederate states have "not 
proceeded from a disregard of just obligations;" that they have 
"not failed to perform any Constitutional duty;" that they have 
not been "moved" by any "interest or passion to invade the 
rights of others;" and that they are "anxious to cultivate peace 
and Commerce with all nations." It is also a solemn declara- 
tion that if war is forced upon them, they "may at least expect 
that posterity will acquit" them of "having needlessly engaged 
in it." Who then caused the war? 

Again: "An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the 
export of a commodity required in every manufacturing coun- 
try, our true policy is peace and the freest trade which our nec- 
essities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those 
to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there 
should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange 
of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between ours 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 331 

and any manufacturing community such as the Northeastern 
States of the American Union. It must follow, therefore, that 
a mutual interest would invite good will and kind offices." 

What sound of a war-like spirit is to be found in these words? 
Do they not assert, "Our true policy is peace?" Are, they not 
emphatic in declaring, "There can be but little rivalry between 
ours and any manufacturing community such as the Northeast- 
ern States of the American Union?" Do they not take for grant- 
ed "that a mutual interest would invite good will and kind of- 
fices?" Who then caused the war? 

Again : "Through many years of controversy with our late 
associates, the Northern States, we have vainly endeavored to 
secure tranquility and to obtain respect for the rights to which 
we are entitled. As a necessity, not of choice, we have resorted 

to the remedy of separation If a just perception of mutual 

interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our separate politi- 
cal career, my most earnest desire will have been fulfilled." 

What remotest indication of a threat of war is to be found 
in these words? In vain we "endeavored to secure tranquility." 
In vain we attempted to "obtain respect for the rights to which 
we were entitled." It was from "necessity, not choice," that we 
"resorted to the remedy of separation." The entire history of 
the long "controversy" sustains this assertion. Mr. Davis's 
earnest desire for peace was that of all true Southerners: "If 
a just perception of mutual interest shall permit us peaceably 
to pursue our separate career, my most earnest desire will have 
been fulfilled." Is the thunder of artillery heard in words like 
these? 

Again : "We have changed the Constituent parts, but not the 
system, of our Government. The Constitution formed by our 
fatherr. is that of these Confederate States, in their exposition 
of it; and in the judicial construction it has received, we have a 
light which reveals its true meaning." Every syllable, yea every 
letter, in these words of Davis, breathes of devotion to the Con- 
stitution of our fathers. The South's one great sin in the eyes 
of Lincoln and his party was her fidelity to that instrument. His- 
tory has piled evidence upon evidence as to this fact till a moun- 
tciin of testimony kisses the very skies. The South had no pur- 



332 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

pose, no desire, no motive, to make war upon the North. It 
was a libel upon her common sense, upon her self-interest, upon 
her normal condition to assert that she wished to commit ag'gres- 
sion or to do anything wrong whatever to the Northern States 
or their people. Her only motive in quitting the Union was to 
preserve for herself "at least the principles of the Constitution." 
This is why she has been derided by a leading Northern histor- 
ian as "eighteenth century reactionists," that is, eighteenth cen- 
tury constitutionalists. This derision is her proudest appellation. 
For tlie principles of the eighteenth century Constitution, "the 
eighteenth century reactionists" gave the best blood of their 
veins. vShut out by blockade from all ports of the world, with- 
out war mate"ials and the means of manufacturing them, the 
18th century Constitutionalists, less than ()50,0()0 strong, suc- 
cessfully opposed for four long years more than 2,600,000 anti- 
eighteenth century Constitutionalists with all the powers of well- 
organized (jovernment at their back, and went not, then, down 
beneath the hail of lead and iron, and the keen edge of the Da- 
mascus blade, till death had made their serried columns mere 
picket lines : and not then till their slaves were proclaimed free 
and 200.(100 of them armed in defense of the North; and not 
then till plunder and torch had done their most effective work : 
and not then in abjection, but as heroes invincible still. 

Conscious of no wrong, but deeply sensible of right, they bent 
no knee. They stood erect, majestic, sublime, while the shad- 
ows of sorrov/ gatliered about their heroic forms. They knew 
the meaning of victory upon many hard fought fields. As im- 
mortal victors they knew how to vanquish even defeat. And 
they did it as no other soldiers have ever done. Too conserva- 
tive to violate the "ISth century" Constitution, their conserva- 
tism has snatched victory from defeat, and the world to-dny is 
looking upon the restored South as the most glorious section 
of the Union, and soon to be ranked as the best and most pros- 
perous of all the world. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
WHO CAUSED THE WAR? (Continued) 

Further evidence of the desire of the South for peace is seen 
in the resolution passed by the Confederate Congress on the 
15th day of February, 1861, declarinq; its sense "that a commis- 
sion of three be appointed by the President-elect, as early as may 
be convenient after his inauguration, and sent to the Govern- 
ment of the United States of America, for the purpose of ne- 
gotiating friendly relations between that Government, and the 
Confederate States of America, and for the settlement of all 
questions of disagreement between the two governments upon 
principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith." 

In accordance with this resolution Mr. Davis appointed the 
following distinguished citizens of national reputation as that 
commission of three: John ForsUh of Alabama, Martin J. Craw- 
ford of Georgia, and A. B. Roman of Louisiana — all statesmen 
of acknowledged ability. They were clothed with full power to 
open negotiations, to settle ail matters of joint property, such 
as forts, arsenals, arms or property of any kind, whatever with- 
in the limits of the Confederate States. 

As soon as Mr. Lincoln had organized his cabinet they ad- 
dressed to Wm. LL Seward, Secretary of State, the following 
communication: "Seven States of the late Federal Union, hav- 
ing in the exercise of the inherent right of every free people to 
change or reform their political institutions, and through Con- 
ventions of their people, having withdrawn from the L^nited 
vStates, and resumed the attribute nf Sovereign power delegated 
to it, have formed a Ciovernment of their own. 

"With a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing 
out of this political separation, upon such terms of amity and 
good-will as the respective interests., geographical contiguity and 
future welfare of the two nations may render nece-f;sarv, the un- 
dersigned are instructed to make to the Government of the Unit- 
ed States overtures for the opening of negotiations, assuring the 
Government of the United States that the President, Congress 
and people of the Confederate States earne'^tly desire a peaceful 



334 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

solution of these great questions ; that it is neither their interest 
nor their wish to make any demand which is not grounded in 
strict justice, nor do any act to injure their l?te Confeder- 
ates." 

How was this communication in the interest of peace and 
good-will received? Two days after its reception by Mr. Seward 
an indirect and informal answer was made through Justice Nelson 
of the United States Supreme Court and Justice Campbell of 
the same Court to the effect that Air. Seward had a "strong 
disposition in favor of peace, and that he was greatly oppressed 
with a demand of the Commissioners of the Confederate States 
for a reply to their letter : and that he desired to avoid making 
any reply at that time." This evasive answer was made to Judge 
Nelson, and by him to Judge Campbell, who on receiving the 
information, without consulting the commissioners, at once in- 
terviewed Mr. Seward with the hope that he might be instrumen- 
tal in bringing about a peaceful adjustment of all questions at 
issue. On the evening of the same day Judge Campbell handed 
to the Commissioners in writing the following : 

"I feel entire confidence that Fort Sumter will be evacuated 
within the next ten days. And this measure is felt as imposing 
great responsibility on the administration. I feel entire confi- 
dence that no measure changing the existing Status, prejudici- 
al to the Southern Confederate States, is at present contem- 
plated. I feel an entire confidence that an immediate demand 
for an answer to the communication of the commissioners will 
be productive of evil, and not of good. I do not believe that it 
ought at this time to be pressed." 

Could an appeal have been stronger? Could it have come 
through a more trust- worthy and more conciliatory medium? 
Had not Mr. Seward also said to Judge Campbell that "there 
was no design to reinforce Fort Sumter?" — that "it would be 
evacuated in less than ten days?" and that "it would be evacuat- 
ed before a letter could go from Washington to Montgomery?" 
He knew Judge Campbell would report this information to the 
commissioners. He knew it would allay their suspicions. For 
this reason thev did not demand an immediate answer, but re- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 335 

ported their infonnation to President Davis, and he to Beaure- 
gard. 

When the specified time had passed Fort Sumter was still not 
evacuated. Not only this, but Major Anderson was known to 
be making repairs. The facts were telegraphed to the Commis- 
sioners. Judge Campbell again interviewed Seward. Again he 
was assured "that the failure to evacuate Sumter was not the 
result of bad faith, but was attributable to causes consistent with 
the intention to fulfil the engagement, and that as regards Fort 
Pickens, in Florida, notice would be given of any design to alter 
the existing status there." 

On the 7th day of April ISfH, the Relief Squadron left New 
York, causing general alarm. Judge Campbell then "addressed 
a letter to Mr. Seward, asking "if the assurance he had given 
were well or ill founded?" Mr. Seward replied, "Faith as to 
Fort Sumter fully kept — wait and see." This Relief Squadron 
was then on its way to Charleston with instructions to provision 
and reinforce Fort Sumter, "peaceably." if permitted, "otherwise 
by force." 

Here was deception. Here was treachery. Here was false- 
hood. Here was scheming by Seward, and Lincoln, the leading 
instruments in causing the then existing conditions. It was 
against human nature for them to be impartial actors in 
the great drama of these exciting times. The very existence of 
another Confederacy was a severe and most solemn rebuke to 
them and their allies. They had gone too far beyond Consti- 
tutional limits to retreat. They had said too much to retract. 
Hence they practiced this most flagrant deception. They used 
Judge Nelson of New York and Judge Campbell of Alabama, 
members of the United States Supreme Court, as mediums of in- 
tercourse with the commissioners to allay all suspicion. At the 
same time they were energetically plotting for an advantage in 
the war they had all the time determined to inaugurate : — yea, in 
the war they then and there declared by their conduct to he al- 
ready inaugurated. 

Why was this information deferred till the ominous hour when 
the Relief Squadron was approaching the harbor of Charleston? 
That was the pregnant hour — the hour of surprise. Upon it all 



336 RICHARDSON'S T)f:FENSE OF THE SOUTH 

depended. For the Consummation of this hour falsehood, treach- 
ery and deception, disguised in the sacred ermine of the judiciar}', 
personated truth, the peerless gem of virtues. For the consum- 
mation of this hour secret counsels were held and secret plans 
inaugurated. For the consummation of this hour Fort Sumter 
was not evacuated after many unqualified affirmations, that it 
would he. For the consummation of this hour eminisaries with 
false tongues were sent to Charleston and Fort Sumter, and 
played well their part in the drama of deception. 

It was the hour designated by the Washington authorities in 
which to force the South to fire on the flag of the Union. To 
this every false promise, every intrigue, every insult, and every 
threat pointed. It was doubtless desirable to reinforce Fort 
Sumter, but that was not the paramount desire. We have seen 
that the accusation of treason, rebellion, meant war. We have 
heard the notes of war in Lincoln's inaugural address. We have 
seen that Lincoln and Seward had already declared war by their 
treatment of the Peace Commissioners. We have seen the red 
flag of war floating from all the facts. It was necessary, there- 
fore, that the Northern heart should be fired, and the Northern 
people united. What would do this so effectively as the South's 
firing on the flag? Therefore the Relief Squadron was secretly 
sent on its mission of war, and its object made known to Gov- 
ernor Pickens and Beauregard at the hour of its approach. The 
plot was well laid, and faultlessly executed. The flag was fired 
on. Fort Sumter surrendered. The Northern heart was fired. 
The North was unified. The world was told that the South had 
fired the first gim and therefore had inaugurated the war. But 
who caused the war? 

It is the 9th of April, 18(51. The Peace Commissioners have 
addressed another communication to Mr. Seward. From it we 
take the following: "Your Government has not chosen to meet 
the imdersigned, in the conciliatory and peaceful spirit in which 
they are commissioned. Persistently wedded to those fatal theor- 
ies of construction of the Federal Constitution, always rejected 
by the Statesmen of the Snuth. and adhered to by those of the 
administration school, until they have produced their natural and 
often predicted result of the destruction of the Union, under 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 337 

v/hich we might have continued to Uve happily and gloriously 
together, had the spirit of the ancestry who framed the common 
Constitution animated the hearts of all their sons.... Had you 
met these issues with the frankness and manliness with which 
the undersigned were instructed to present them to you and treat 
them, the undersigned had not the melancholy duty to return 
home and tell their Government and their countrymen, that their 
earnest and ceaseless efforts in behalf of peace had been futile^ 
and that the Government of the United States meant to sub- 
jugate them by the force of arms. Whatever may be the result,, 
impartial history will record the innocence of the Government of 
the Confederate States, and place the responsibility of the blood 
and mourning that may ensue, upon those who have denied 
the great fundamental doctrine of American liberty, that 'Govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed/ 
and who have set naval and land armaments in motion, to sub- 
ject the people of one portion of the land to the will of another 
portion. 

"Your refusal to entertain these overtures for a peaceful solu- 
tion, the active Naval and Military preparations of this Govern- 
ment, and a formal notice to the commanding General of the 
Confederate forces in the harbor of Charleston, that the Presi- 
dent intends to provision Fort Sumter by forcible means, if nec- 
essary, are viewed by the undersigned as a declaration of war 
against the Confederate States." 

"It was indeed more than a mere declaration of war. It was 
an act of war itself." The departure of the Relief Squadron 
from New York on the 7th of April, 1861, with provisions and 
soldiers, under orders, to provision and reinforce Fort Sumter,, 
was the first blow struck in that great war. The whole world 
knows who struck that blow. It was the beginning of a con- 
test, tKe magnitude of which is without a parallel in the annals- 
of history. Hannibal, in revenge for the death of his ancestor,, 
razed to the ground the great city, Himera, and offered up to 
his god an awful holocaust of 3,000 prisoners. Lincoln, in re- 
venge for the refusal of the South to accept his construction of 
the Constitution, razed to the ground many cities, burned inr- 
numerable homes, and devastated the great section of the Souths 



338 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and ofiered up to his god no less than approximately one mil- 
lion patriot citizens of the two sections. In vain was he admon- 
ished of "the often predicted result of the destruction of the 
Union." In vain was he told the North and the South might 
have continued to live happily and gloriously together, had the 
spirit of the ancestry animated the hearts of all their sons. In 
vain was he told the United States meant the subjugation of 
the South "by the force of arms," and whatever the result might 
be, impartial history will record the innocence of the Govern- 
ment of the Confederate States, and place the responsibility of 
the blood and mourning, that may ensue, upon those who have 
denied the great fundamental doctrines of American liberty, that 
"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed." 

It is now known that Gen. Winfield Scott, as Commander-in- 
Chief of the United States army, advised, "Let the wayward sis- 
ters go in peace." It is also of record that Senator Douglas, 
on the 15th of March offered a resolution to that effect. 

Speaking in advocacy of this resolution he said: "We certain- 
ly cannot justify the holding of Forts there, much less the re- 
capturing of those which have been taken, unless we intend to 
reduce those States, themselves, into subjection. I take it for 
granted no man will deny the proposition that whoever perma- 
nently holds Charleston and South Carolina, is entitled to the 
possession of Fort Sumter. Whoever permanently holds Pen- 
sacola and Florida is entitled to the possession of Fort Pickens. 
Whoever holds the States in whose limits those forts are placed, 
are entitled to the forts themselves; unless there is something 
peculiar in the location of some particular fort that makes it im- 
portant for us to hold it for the general defense of the whole 
country, its commerce and interests, instead of being useful only 
for the defense of a particular city or locality." 

Note the strong confident language of Mr. Douglas, "I take 
it for granted no man will deny the proposition that whoever holds 
Charleston and South Carolina, is entitled to the possession of 
Fort Sumter." And who was Douglas? In 1841 a judge of 
the Supreme Court of Illinois, twice a candidate for President of 
the United States— in 1851 and 1850. This most emminent and 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 339 

most able statesman says, "I take it for granted." He further 
said, "We cannot deny that there is a Southern Confederacy, 
de facto, in existence with its capital at Montgomery. We may 
regret it. I regret it most profoundly; but I cannot deny the 
truth of the fact, painful and mortifying as it is. . . .1 proclaim 
boldly the policy of those with whom I act. We are for peace. 
There is no concealment on this side." This is the language 
of censure and rebuke for the policy of the Government. "I 
regret it most profoundly" is no less a rebuke than are the words, 
"There is no concealment on this side." 

Mr, Douglas next said, "We must choose and that promptly, 
between one of three lines of policy : 

"1. The restoration and preservation of the Union, by such 
amendments to the Constitution as will insure the domestic tran- 
quility, safety and equality of all the States, and thus restore 
peace, unity and fraternity to the whole country. 

"3. A Peaceful dissolution of the Union, by recognizing the 
Independence of such States as refuse to remain in the Union 
without such Constitutional amendments, and the establishment 
of a liberal system of commercial and social intercourse with 
them, by treaties of commerce and amity. 

"3. War, with a view to the subjugation and military occu- 
pation of those States which have seceded, or may secede, from 
the Union. 

"In my opinion the first proposition is the best, and the last 
the worst, why cannot we arrive at some amicable adjustment 
of the questions in dispute? 

Mr. Douglas knew the seceded States had 'merely asserted a 
right which the Declaration of Independence had defined to be 
inalienable ;" and they had withdrawn from the Union for the 
sole purpose of preserving to themselves the principles of the 
Constitution ; and that the holding of these forts was a declara- 
tion of war. 

This resolution was tabled by a vote of 33 to 11, every Dem- 
ocrat and Anti-Centralist voting for it 

It is an assured fact that eleven Sentaors agreed with Gen. 
Scott. It is also assured that Mr. Lincoln on the 14th day of 
March, 1861, telegraphed to the world that Fort Sumter was 



•340 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

to be evacuated ; and hence, that, then, Mr. Lincoln himself 
agreed with Gen. Scott. This fact can not be denied. It is 
also certain that this historic message caused seven Governors 
from seven Northern States to hastily assemble in Washington 
City, where they hastily organized, and in a body opposed the 
policy of peace, tendering the Government their organized mil- 
itary forces. It is also an established fact that Mr. Lincoln 
changed his peace policy to that of war. Shall we say it? — 
it is also an established fact that this change of policy was not 
flashed to the world by the electric spark. True manliness and 
true honor demanded the same publicity for this change of pol- 
icy as was given to the policy of peace. But not even the Peace 
Commissioners from the Montgomery Government were inform- 
ed as to the change. Believing that Lincoln and Seward were 
incapable of treachery and falsehood, they were still resting 
upon assurance. 

At the same time, while falsehood and treachery stood as a 
screen between the Commissioners and the Federal Government, 
vigorous preparations for war and subjugation were being secret- 
ly carried on by the latter. What verdict will be that of the 
dispassionate and disinterested future historian? 

It is an established fact also that Major Anderson agreed 
with Gen. Scott, as shown by the following letter protesting 
against Fox's plan for relieving Fort Sumter : 

"Fort Sumter, S. C, April 8, 1861. 
"To Col. L. Thomas, Adjt. Gen., U. S. Army: 

"Colonel : I have the honor to report that resumption of 
work yesterday (Sunday) at various points on Morris Island, and 
the vigorous prosecution of it this morning, apparently strength- 
ening all the batteries which are under the fire of our guns, 
shows they either have just received some news from Washing- 
ton which has put them on the qui vive, or that they have re- 
ceived orders from Montgomery to commence operations here. 
I am preparing, by the side of my barbette guns, protection for 
our men from the shells which will be almost continually burst- 
ing over or in our work. 

• "I had the honor to receive, by yesterday's • mail, the letter 
of the Hon. Sec. of War, dated April the 4th, and confess that 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 341 

what he there states surprises me very greatly — fallowing as it 
does, and contradicting so positively the assurance Mr. Crawford, 
teleo-raphed he was authorized to make. I trust that this matter 
will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, 
when the South has been erroneously informed that none such, 
would be attempted, would produce most disastrous results- 
throughout our country. It is of course, now too late for me to 
give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain 
Fox. I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all- 
concerned. Even with his boat at our wall, the loss of life (as 
I think I mentioned to Mr. Fox) in unloading her will more 
than pay for the good accomplished by the expedition, which 
keeps us, if I can maintain possession of this work, out of posi- 
tion, surrounded by strong works which must be carried to make 
this Fort of the least value to the United States Government. 

"We have not oil enough to keep a light in the lantern for 
one night. The boats will have to, therefore, rely at night en- 
tirely upon other marks. I ought to have been informed that 
this expedition was to come. Col. Lamon's remark convinced 
me that the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would 
not be carried out. " 

"We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that 
m.y heart is not in this war, which I see is to be thus commenced. 
That God will avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific means 
to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer ! 

"I am. Colonel, very respectfully, 

"Your obedient servant, 

Robert Anderson, 
"Major 1st Artillery, Commanding." 

Note that this letter was written on the 8th of April, and yet 
Major Anderson says frankly "my heart is not in this war which 
is to be thus commenced. He knew on the 8th of April that 
war was meant.He then makes that "ardent prayer" "that God 
would avert it and cause us to resort to pacific means." The 
"us" refers to the United States Government for he knew from 
the assurances of Mr. Crawford that the Montgomery Govern- 
ment, was anxiously seeking peaceful means. Evidently Major 



342 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Anderson knew the United States Government was thus begin- 
ning the war. 

There is another very important fact mentioned in this letter, 
viz: "If I can maintain possession of this work," it is "sur- 
rounded by strong works which must be carried to make this 
fort of the least value to the United States Government" — that 
is Fort Sumter will be of no use to us even if we can hold it. 
Was the real object of this expedition to hold Fort Sumter ? We 
shall see. 

It also shows his dissatisfaction with orders from Washington, 
and his want of sympathy with his Government's bad faith. It 
is a vindication of Major Anderson as a character and as a gen- 
tleman. It is also to be remembered that he was writing to a 
superior military officer; and was writing, therefore, with more 
or less reserve. 

Another important fact: On the 11th day of April Governor 
Pickens and Gen. Beauregard were informally notified through 
an agent from Washington that Fort Sumter was to be rein- 
forced "peacefully if possible — otherwise by force." Immediate- 
ly this information was telegraphed to Montgomery, and on the 
same day Beauregard was instructed as follows : "If you have 
no doubt of the authorized character of the agent who communi- 
cated to you the intention of the Washington Government to 
supply Fort Sumter by force, you will at once demand its evacua- 
tion ; and if this is refused, proceed in such manner, as you may 
determine, to reduce it." Who is the aggressor here? 

Beauregard, therefore, sent a messenger demanding the evac- 
uation of the fort. To which Major Anderson replied, "I regret 
that my sense of honor, and my obligations to my Government 
prevent my compliance." He then remarked to the messenger, 
"If you do not batter us to pieces we will starve out within a 
few days." 

Anderson's written reply and his verbal remark, both, were 
immediately sent to the Montgomery Government ; and the reply 
that, at once, came back was conciliatory and discreet, showing 
that the Confederate Government would not fire on Fort Sumter 
unless compelled to do so. It was as follows : "Do not desire 
needlesly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Major Anderson will 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 343 

state the time at which, as indicated by himself, he will evacuate 
and agree that, in the meantime, he will not use his guns against 
us, unless ours should be employed against Fort Sumter, you are 
authorized thus to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or its 
equivalent is refused, reduce the fort as your judgment decides 
most practicable." 

Why was Major Anderson requested to name the time he 
would evacuate the fort, and promise "not to use his guns against 
the Confederates" in the meantime? Because that warlike fleet 
with war orders was momentarily expected to enter the Harbor 
of Charleston, and that renewed and persistent act of war would 
be a defiant challenge for combat, and the challenge was sure of 
acceptance. In that event, unless Major Anderson would con- 
sent not to use his guns, the forces under Beauregard would be 
exposed to two fires at once — from both the front and rear. It 
is well known that Anderson refused this request. Why? Be- 
cause he knew eleven ships with 250 guns and 2400 soldiers were 
near at hand to reenforce him with both provisions and men. 

Thus closed the stirring events late on the 11th day of April. 
At 3 o'clock on the next morning (12th April) that armed 
fleet instructed to supply Fort Sumter with men and provisions 
by force "if necessary," anchored just off the Harbor of Charles- 
ton. At 4:30 o'clock on the same fatal morning just one and 
one-half hours later, the boom of the first gun of that most ter- 
rible war was heard. That gun was the culmination of Lincoln's 
war message and deception and intrigue, and falsehood, and 
treachery, and threatened force. It was fired in self-defense. 

If the threatened invasion of the Harbor of Charleston by 
this fleet with orders to forcibly supply Fort Sumter did not 
mean war what did it mean? If on a peaceful mission why 
those heavy guns? Why those armed men? If peace was its 
object why did it not come in the garb of peace, and in the spirit 
of peace? Ablest statesmen, both North and South knew war 
was meant. They were not deceived. Nor is any well informed 
man deceived today. War was meant and the North can not 
becloud the fafct. 

Henry Hallam in his "Constitutional History of England (vol. 
2, p. 219) says, "The aggressor in a war is not the first who 



■344 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

uses force, but the first who renders force necessary." The 
^first edition of this work was pubHshed in 1827 ; and it has been 
acknowledged so masterly that it has, since, gone through many 
■editions. It has also been translated into the French and Ger- 
man languages. With him agrees Dryden when he defines the 
aggressor as the "one who commences a quarrel ;" and also Web- 
ster when he styles the aggressor the "one who commits the first 
act." With all these high authorities is common sense in full 
accord. Therefore the firing of that first gun at 4 :30 o'clock 
on the morning of the 12th of April, 1861, did not inaugurate 
that most terrible war. 



;£ 



CHAPTER XXV. 
WHO INAUGURATED THE WAR? 

In the last chapter we showed from Hallam that the aggres- 
sors in a war are those who render force necessary, and not those 
who first use force. In this chapter we shall introduce additional 
testimony that the authorities at Washington, and not those at 
Montgomery, were the aggressors. 

In the Papers of the Southern Historical Society appended 
to the Southern Magazine for February, 1874, is a letter from 
Judge Campbell to Col. George Munford. In that letter we are told 
by Judge Campbell of a visit made by Judge Nelson, on the 
15th of March, 1861, to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, to 
Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, and to Mr. Bates, the 
Attorney General; and that his object was to dissuade them from 
putting into execution any policy of coercion. 

Here is a part of what Judge Campbell says of that visit to 
Judge Nelson : "During the term of the Supreme Court be 
(Judge Nelson) had very carefully examined the laws of the 
United States to enable him to attain his conclusions, and from 
time to time he had consulted Chief Justice Taney upon the ques- 
tions which his examination had suggested. His conclusion 
was that, without very serious violations of the Constitution and 
Statutes, coercion could not be successfully effected by the Exe- 
ecutive Department. As he was returning from his visit to the 
State Department we casually met and he informed me of what 
he had done. He said he had spoken to these officers at large; 
that he was received with respect, and listened to attentively by 
all, with approbation by the Attorney General, and with great 
cordiality by the Secretary of State ; that the Secretary had ex- 
pressed gratification to find so many impediments to the disturb- 
ance of peace, and only wished there had been more. He stated 
the Secretary told him there was a present cause of embarrass- 
ment ; that the Southern commissioners had demanded recogni- 
tion, and a refusal would lead to irritation and excitement in 
the Southern States, and would cause a counter-irritation in the 



346 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Northern States prejudicial to a peaceful adjustment. Justice 
Nelson suggested that I might be of service." 

Observe that this letter shows four of the very highest legal 
functionaries, — Chief Justice Taney, Justice Nelson, Justice Camp- 
bell and Attorney Gen. Bates, — all agreeing that coercion could 
not be successfully effected by the Executive Department "with- 
out very serious violations of the Constitution and Statutes." 
For more than six and one-half decades this had been the deci- 
sion ; that is, during the entire life of the Republic. It was never 
called in question till the exigencies of a political party demanded 
it. Confirmed by the rigid investigations of the last half cen- 
tury, it will be sustained and strengthened by all future investi- 
gations. Founded on the bed-rock of the very fabric of the 
Republic it can never be changed. 

Lincoln, in his inaugural address, referred to his sacred oath, 
obligating him to enforce the Constitution and execute the laws, 
yet he refused to consult the only tribunal whose decision is 
law itself. From the testimony of Justice Nelson, it seems that 
he was more concerned about "irritation" in the South and "coun- 
ter-irritation" in the North, than about the enforcement of the 
Constitution. Yet his policy of deception was a policy of irri- 
tation to both sections. His policy of deception was supplanted 
by that of coercion, a policy of irritation, beside which that of 
peace would have been to both sections as the gentlest zephyr 
to the mightiest storm. As for the North it is well known that 
more than 62 per cent, of her votes were cast against Lincoln, 
and a large per cent, of his own party were opposed to coercion. 
H'ence the "counter-irritation" in the North would not have 
been so bad as depicted. 

In compliance with the suggestion of Judge Nelson these two 
distinguished citizens visited the State Department together, and 
urged Mr. Seward to reply to the Commissioners, and assure 
them of the desire of the Government, for a friendly adjustment. 
Mr. Seward objected to an immediate recognition of the Com- 
missioners, on the ground that the North would not sustain it 
in connection with the withdrawal of the troops from Fort Sum- 
ter, which had been determined on. "The evacuation of Sum- 
ter," he said "is as much as the administration can bear." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 347 

Judge Campbell says: "I concurred in the conclusion that the 
evacuation of Sumter involved responsibility and stated that 
there could not be too much caution in the adoption of measures 
so as not to shock or irritate the public sentiment, and that the 
evacuation of Sumter was sufficient for the present in that di- 
rection. I stated that I would see the Commissioners, and I 
would write to Mr. Davis to that eflfect. I asked him what T 
should say as to Sumter and as to Pickens. He authorized me 
to say that before that letter could reach him (Davis) he would 
learn by telegraph that the order for the evacuation of Sumter 
had been made. He said the condition of Pickens was satisfac- 
tory, and there would be no change made there." 

The order to evacuate Fort Sumter was never given. Fort 
Pickens was reenforced. Judge Campbell further says that Mr, 
Crawford was slow to consent not to press the demand for rec- 
ognition. "It was only after some discussion and expression of 
some objections that he consented" to do so. The condition of 
this consent was that Fort Sumter should be evacuated at a very 
early date, "Mr. Crawford required the pledge of Mr. Seward 
to be reduced to writing with Judge Campbell's personal assur- 
ance of its genuiness and accuracy." 

This statement was put in writing, approved by Judge Nelson, 
and then submitted to the Secretary of State, who approved of 
it. This was a pledge not only to the Commissioners, but also 
to the highest authority. For the Secretary of State is "the 
official organ of communication of the views and purposes of 
his Government." What pledge was that? It was, that Fort 
Sumter would be evacuated within a few days, and that the status 
of Fort Pickens would not be disturbed. Remember, a pledge 
is a very strong way of asserting a fact. It is a surety of ful- 
filling a promise. 

Judge Campbell further says: "In the course of this con- 
versation I told Judge Crawford that it was fair to tell him 
that the opinion at Washington was, the secession movements 
were shortlived, that his Government would wither under sun- 
shine and that they might have a contrary effect, but that I 
did not consider the effect. I wanted, above all other things, 
peace. I was willing to accept whatever peace might bring. 



348 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

whether Union or disunion. I did not look beyond peace. He 
said he was willing to take all the risk of sunshine." 

It is also fair to say, that, many Southerners believed that with 
a policy of peace on the part of the North the Confederate and 
the United States Government would have finally merged into 
one Government by compromises satisfactory to both sections ; 
that the South's fidelity to the common Constitution was beyond 
dispute ; and that in the North the love for the Constitution would 
have finally prevailed. Thus many true Southerners believed that 
by profiting by experience the two sections would unite under a 
more perfect, a stronger, and a more enduring Government. 

After waiting five days the Commissioners telegraphed Gen. 
Beauregard to know if the Fort had been evacuated, and if not 
were there any indications that it probably would be soon. Beau- 
regard replied that the Fort had not been evacuated ; and that 
there were no indications of such a purpose, but on the contrary 
Major Anderson was strengthening its defences. 

This dispatch was shown Judge Campbell, who with Judge 
Nelson immediately called on Mr. Seward. They held two inter- 
views with the Secretary of State. Of the result Judge Camp- 
bell states : "The last was full and satisfactory. The Secretary 
was bouyant and sanguine ; he spoke of his ability to carry throiigh 
his policy with confidence. He accounted for the delay as ac- 
cidental, and not involving the integrity of his assurances that 
the evacuation would take place, and that I should know when- 
ever any change was made in the resolution in reference to 
Sumter or Pickens. I repeated this assurance in writing to 
Judge Crawford, and informed Governor Seward in writing of 
what I had said." 

How assurances had accumulated that Fort Sumter's garrison 
would be withdrawn ! How startling were the facts that have 
since been brought to light ! All the time these asusrances were 
becoming voluminous the Government was assiduously engaged 
in devising means to retain possession of the fort. The Presi- 
dent and his Secretary must have been educated in that school 
of politics whose chief motto is, "All things are fair in politics." 
That school never turned out two more capable and more il- 
lustrious graduates than Seward and Lincoln. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 349 

It is well known that G. V. Fox afterward assistant secretary 
of the U. S. Navy, proposed to President Buchanan a plan for 
supplying and reinforcing Fort Sumter in February. In a let- 
ter published since the war he tells how his plan was renewed to 
Lincoln's administration and of its reception by Lincoln. 

In that letter he says : "On the 12th of March I received a 
telegram from Postmaster Gen. Blair to come to Washington. 
I arrived there on the 13th of March. Mr. Blair having been 
acquainted with the proposition I presented to Gen. Scott under 
Mr. Buchanan's administration, sent for me to tender the same 
to Mr. Lincoln, informing me that Lieut.-Gen. Scott had advised 
the President that the fort could not be relieved, and must be 
given up. Mr. Blair took me at once to the White House, and 
I explained the plan to the President. Thence we adjourned to 
Lieut.-Gen. Scott's office, where a renewed discussion of the 
subject took place. The General informed the President that 
my plan was practicable in February, but that the increased num- 
ber of batteries erected at the mouth of the harbor since that 
time rendered it Impossible in March. 

"Fmding that there was great opposition to any attempt at 
relieving Fort Sumter and that Mr. Blair alone sustained the 
President in his policy of refusing to yield, I judged that my 
arguments in favor of the practicability of sending in supplies 
would be strenghtened by a visit to Charleston and the fort. 
The President readily agreed to my visit, if the Secretary of War 
and Gen. Scott raised no objection. 

"Both these gentlemen consenting, I left Washington the 19th 
of March, and passing through Richmond and Washington reach- 
ed Charleston on the 21st." 

This letter of Fox shows that on the 12th of March only Lin- 
coln and Blair favored reinforcing Fort Sumter. It also shows 
that at the very time Secretary Seward was making renewed as- 
surances of the most positive character, through Judges Camp- 
bell and Nelson, a secret agent was on the way to Charleston to 
obtain information and advise plans by which Fort Sumter could 
be supplied and reinforced. In other words while giving pledges 
he was spying out means by which he could break those pledges. 
From the message of Governor Pickens to the South Carolina 



350 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Legislature, November, 1861, we learn that Fox obtained per- 
mission to visit Fort Sumpter "expressly upon the pledge of pa- 
cific purposes." But a pledge to Fox was no more binding than 
it was to Seward and Lincoln. While in the fort he matured 
the details of his plan to supply and reinforce the garrison as 
he himself informs us without making known his plans and pur- 
poses to Major Anderson. As the result of that visit his plan 
was approved and the Relief-Squadron was called into exis- 
tence. 

This is not all. In the same message to which we have re- 
ferred, Governor Pickens says, "In a very few days after, an- 
other Confidential agent. Col. Lamon, was sent by the Presi- 
dent (Mr. Lincoln), who informed me that he had come to try 
and arrange for the removal of the garrison, and, when he re- 
turned from the fort, asked if a war vessel could not be allowed 
to remove them. I replied that no war vessel could be allowed 
to enter the harbor on any terms. He said he believed Major 
Anderson preferred an ordinary steamer, and I agreed that the 
garrison might be thus removed. He said he hoped to return 
in a very few days for that purpose." 

Lamon had gone to the fort upon the same pledge of "pacific 
purposes." He talked, he acted as if the garrison was to be re- 
moved. When a war-vessel was refused by the Governor as 
the means of removing the garrison he thought "Major Ander- 
son preferred an ordinary steamer." He returned to Washing- 
ton expressing a hope "to return in a few days for that pur- 
pose" — the purpose of removing the garrison. At that very time 
Mr. Fox was secretly active in making preparations for his Re- 
lief Squadron. | 

Consider the visits of these two emisaries (Fox and Lamon) 
and their violations of their pledges of "pacific purposes," Let 
it be remembered at the same time that Lamon did not return 
to Charleston "for that purpose," as he had promised. Let it 
also be remembered that on the 10th of March, 1861, Governor 
Pickens telegraphed the Commissioners in Washington inquiring 
about Col. Lamon and why he delayed to fulfil the promise of 
evacuation. Remember too that it was just fifteen days ago 
when the first assurance of Mr. Seward had been made that Fort 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 351 

Sumter would be evacuated immediately; and just ten days after 
he had explained that "The delay was accidental." 

That despatch of Governor Pickens was submitted to Secre- 
tary Seward by Judge Campbell. The first day of April was 
appointed for an interview and answer. When that day came 
Mr. Seward said to Judge Campbell, "There was a point of 
honor involved; that Lamon had no agency from him nor title 
to speak." (Judge Campbell's letter to Col. Munford) Honor? 
where among all these multiplied facts of contradiction and 
falsehood had it found an abode? But Mr. Seward returned, 
through Judge Campbell, this answer to the Commissioners: 
"The Government will not undertake to supply Fort Sumter with- 
out giving notice to Governor Pickens." Thus Lamon was de- 
based because he failed. Who doubts if the ruse of Lamon had 
succeeded that his name would have been placed on the honor- 
roll? 

Judge Campbell says in his letter to Munford, "I asked Mr. 
Seward whether I was to understand that there had been a change 
in his former communications. His answer was 'none.' " 

Because of general rumors Judge Campbell in behalf of the 
commissioners on the 7th of April wrote again to Mr. Seward, 
"asking whether the assurances so often given were well or ill 
founded." Mr. Seward replied in writing: "Faith as to Sum- 
ter fully kept. Wait and see." At that very moment the squad- 
ron was in the act of leaving New York and Portsmouth. 

The very next day (April 8) Mr. Chew, an official of Mr. 
Seward's department, accompanied by Capt. Talbot, appeared be- 
fore Gov. Pickens and Gen. Beauregard in Charleston, and read 
to them the following paper, which he and Talbot said was from 
the President of the United States : 

"I am directed by the President of the United States to notify 
you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter 
with provisions only ; and that, if such an attempt is not resisted, 
no effort to throw in men, arms or ammunition, will be made, 
without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort. 
(Record of Fort Sumter by W. A. Harris.) 

What a travesty upon plighted faith ! Is this the meaning of 
■"Faith as to Fort Sumter fully kept?" Is this the hidden mean- 



352 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ing of "wait and see?" After all the multiplied deceptions prac- 
ticed by Lincoln and Seward did Mr. Lincoln expect Gov. Pick- 
ens and Gen. Beauregard to believe him as to "provisions only ?" 
Where are all those pacific pledges that echo along the march- 
of 27 days? They are lost in the wide, wide realm of treach- 
ery. Did Mr. Lincoln imagine that his deceptive pacific pledges 
had thus far succeeded so well that Gov. Pickens and Gen. Beau- 
regard would believe even that a number of gunboats, the vehi- 
cles of implements of war, would come burdened with "provi- 
sions only?" But agent Chew did not mention gunboats in 
Lincoln's name. No, but the ever vigilant press had ; and he 
reported that "an attempt will be made." "An attempt" implies 
force if necessary and Mr. Chew did not say the vessels loaded 
with "provisions only" would be unarmed. 

The time agent Chew delivered Mr. Lincoln's message is the 
8th day of April 1801. A portion of Fox's Relief Fleet has been 
a full day at sea. At the average rate of speed it is expected 
to ride gracefully and triumphantly into the Charleston Harbor 
almost immediately after Gov. Pickens and Gen. Beauregard are 
notified, and before they can prepare to receive it. Why does 
this expectation fail ? It is due to a severe storm which anchors 
the fleet just ofif the Harbor of Charleston. Had not the storm 
surprised and delayed the fleet it would have surprised Gov. Pick- 
ens and Gen. Beauregard. 

On the very day (April 8) Mr. Chew reported that "an at- 
tempt to reinforce Fort Sumter" will be made, the Peace Com- 
missioners sent this dispatch to Gen. Beauregard : 

"Washington, April 8, 1861. 

Gen. G. T. Beauregard : Accounts uncertain because of the 
constant vacillation of this Government. We were reassured yes- 
terday that the status of Sumter would not be changed without 
previous notice to Gov. Pickens, but we have no faith in them. 
The war policy prevails in the Cabinet at this time. 

M. J. Crawford." 

This despatch discloses three facts: 1. That the Commis- 
sioners had ceased to place any confidence in the promises of 
the United States Government, or (2) in assurances that the 
status of Fort Sumter would not be changed without previous 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 353 

notice to Gov. Pickens; (3) "The war policy prevailed at that 
time." 

Mr. Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy in Mr. Lincoln's 
Cabinet, fixes the time when "the President announced his de- 
cision that supplies should be sent to Sunrter, and issued Confi- 
dential orders to that eflFect. All were gratified with this deci- 
sion, except Mr. Seward, who still remonstrated, but ])repara- 
tions were immediatel}- commenced to fit but an expedition to for- 
ward supplies." ("Lincoln and Seward," N. Y., 18' -I, pp. 
57 and 58). 

The time fixed by \\v. Wells in this letter is the 28th of March, 
1861. Observe L that Mr. Lincoln decided to supply Fort 
Simiter on the VSth of March ; 2, that at the same time he 
"issued orders to that efifect ;" 3. that these orders were "confi- 
dential ;" 4, that "all were gratified except Seward, who still 
remonstrated:" and 5. that perparations were immediately com- 
menced. And remember that it was the <Sth of April when 
Gov. Pickens was notified — eleven days after Lincoln's decision. 
All this time "pacific pledges" were being made. .-Ml this time 
the preparations began "immediately" were being secretl\ per- 
formed, under "confidential orders." 

Francis Newton Thorpe in "The Civil War from a Northern 
Standpoint" thus corroborates Gideon Wells : Lincoln exhaus- 
ed information about Fort Sumter and all pertaining to the ques- 
tion its reinforcement involved. As the result of much negotia- 
tion and many interviews Justice Campbell of Alabama, of the 
United States Supreme Court, reinforced by Nelson of New 
York, also of the Supreme Court, strongly advised the Secretary 
of State against any attempt at coercion. Lincoln consented 
that Fort Sumter shoidd be evacuated, also Fort Pickens' and 
publication of this decision was made.... This was the political 
situation on March 28, 1861 (p. 234). 

The imiversal verdict is that this was a true peace policy. It 
was strongly "advised" by two Supreme Court Judges. There- 
fore it had strong judicial sup|xirt. One of these judges was 
from the North and the other from the South. It was, therefore, 
non-sectional as well as impartial. It was also "the result of 
much negotiation and many interviews." It was, therefore, well 



364 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE . SOUTH 

considered. In fact there was nothing hasty about it except 
its abandonment. 

If this was a true peace policy, as all admit, by what manner 
of argument can its very opposite be also a true peace policy? 
If not a peace policy it was a war policy. No logic can evade 
this conclusion. Wlio then inaugurated it? 

On the next page (235) Mr. Thorpe says, in defense of Mr. 
Lincoln, "In truth promise to evacuate Fort Sumter had been 
made by Secretary Seward without Lincoln's authority." ap- 
parently forgetting that he had just said "Lincoln consented that 
Fort Sumter should be evacuated, also Fort Pickens, and publi- 
cation of this decision was made". It is to be presumed that 
Gideon Wells, a memlx;r of the Lincoln C:-ibinet, and present in the 
meeting on that fatal occasion of such a momentous decision, 
knew more al>out it than does Mr. Thorpe. "All were gratified 
with this decision," says Mr. Wells, except Mr. Seward, who 
still remonstrated." 

The time has come when responsibilty should be fixed for 
that war which brought tears and lamentations to millions of 
American homes. Ft can not be fixed on the South. An attempt 
is now being made to lay the blame on poor Seward. He indeed 
was the medium of deception as to Lincoln's plans, but Mr. 
Wells tells us that Seward on that eventful occasion was the 
only cabinet member that opposed coercion. 

But had Mr. Wells not spoken it would be impossible to dis- 
associate the action of the President from that of his Secretary. 
Can any intelligent American citizen believe that the President 
can be relieved from responsibility for the conduct of his secre- 
tary? Is it a thinkable proposition that the man who "exhaust- 
ed information abot't Fort Sumter and all pertaining to the ques- 
tion its reenforcmeent involved," was ignorant, for nearly one 
month., of what transpired Ix'tween the Secretary and the Com- 
missioners, and that too, through the medium of the distinguish- 
ed members of the Supreme Court? Some men may be de- 
ceived for a time, but all men can not be deceived for all time. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
LmCOLN'S FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS. 

The mask as to the South has been thrown off. Deception and 
intrigue have done their work. The South's earnest desire for 
peace in the closing days of 1860 and in the beginning of 1861 
are read in the speeches and addresses of her leading statesmen 
before and at the time of secession ; in all the resolutions of her 
State Legislatures and State Conventions ; in all the acts of her 
Congress ; in the efforts of her Peace Commissioners ; in her 
deep sense of utter want of preparation for war : and in her 
consciousness that she had all to lose by war and nothing to 
gain. Had she sprung a Colossus Giant as a Nation full armed 
into the arena of world-powers, and had each of these powers 
extended to her the warm strong hand of friendship, it would 
not have been, even then, to her interest to have invited war. 

But, instead, she stood alone, unarmed, a sublime spectacle in 
the rectitude of her conduct, awaiting the impending storm fore- 
shadowed in Lincoln's inaugural address ; in falsehood personi- 
fying truth; in treachery wearing the garb of sincerity; in an 
armed expedition, having "confidential orders, to reinforce Fort 
Sumter ;" in the war-rumors published throughout the North ! 
in short, in the gradual unfolding of the plans of the Federal 
Government. Not the least among these was the intended sur- 
prise for the authorities, at Charleston, S. C, prevented only by 
a severe storm at sea. vi/ : The Reinforcement of Fort Sum- 
ter. 

The light that is now being focussed upon the issues of the 
Sixties is revealing a conservative South that suffered for the 
principles of self-government, the principles of the Declaration 
of Independence ; suffered with a matchless fortitude and a hero- 
ism unknown ; a conservative South, the virtues of whose man- 
hood and womanhood rival those of the palmiest days of Greece 
and Rome; a conservative South whose Heroic defense of her 
civil rights challenges the world for a parallel ; a Conservative 
South that stood like the solid rock of Gibralter for four long 
years against the Northern millions, reinforced by more than 



356 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

900,000 foreigners and 200,000 Southern negroes ; a conserva- 
tive South that by her courage and valor, having won in the 
Sixties, the admiration of the world, will be revered and honor- 
ed for all time as no other section of earth's wide domain has 
ever been ; a conservative South that now, in time of peace, is 
making a record that bids fair to equal, if not surpass, her rec- 
ord in war. 

It is in defense of this South we write. If the North was 
right in inaugurating war why did she practice deception, in- 
trigue, and falehood ? These are not the friends of right, virtue, 
and truth. If the North was right why did she hesitate and 
vacillate? Hesitancy and vascillation are twin brothers of doubt 
and wrong. Right is the child of justice, and both the child 
and parent have comparatively few friends in this world. Wrong 
numbers her subjects by the million ; right, hers by the hun- 
dred. 

If the States were mere provinces the North was right. But 
What tongue so false to truth as to declare they were mere pro- 
vinces? Did not all the fathers call them States in the full 
sense? The very name of the Federal Government. United 
States (States United) would be meaningless if the States were 
mere provinces. Therefore they were not provinces, but States ; 
and the North by inaugurating the war was guilty of injustice, 
and treason and murder. The impartial historian of the future 
will so decclare. The language of fact is often severe. 

We have shown that the States are States in the same sense 
in which Great Britain is ; and hence that South Carolina was 
a State in the full sense. As such she ceded in trust to the 
Agent of all the States the ground on which Fort Sumter was 
built — in trust for the defence for her own soil and her own 
chief harbor. It is universally conceded that all cessions of 
sites for military purposes by the States were made in trust for 
the defence of the particular States so ceding the sites. 

In South Carolina's case this principle applies with special 
force. All the streams emptying into that harbor are wholly 
within her borders. She alone had any distinct interest in a 
fortress at that point. This is what Mr. Douglas meant when 
he used the words we have previously quoted : "T take it for 



RICHARDSON'vS DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 367 

granted that whoever permanently holds Charleston and South 
Carolina is entitled to the possession of Fort Sumter. Whoever 
holds i>ermanently Pensacola and Florida is entitled to the pos- 
session of Fort Pickens. Whoever holds the States in whose 
limits these forts are placed is entitled to the forts themselves, 
unless there is something peculiar in the location of some par- 
ticular fort that makes it important for us to hold it for the 
general defense of the whole country, instead of being useful 
for the defence of a particular city or locality." 

If Douglas had been President the Constitution would not 
have been violated by the Federal Government, and the loyal 
South would not have seceded, and there would have been no 
war ; and American blood wouUl not have enriched American 
soil. Douglas knew that to have taken possession of Fort Sumter 
and to have attempted to hold it was as much a declaration of 
war as to have taken possession of the city of Charleston and 
to have attempted to hold it. Tf Lincoln did not know this it 
was due to his failure to have informed himself. All know 
that Lincoln's education was limited, and that it was acquired 
under great disadvantages. 

When Fort Sumter fell South Carolina had been a seceded 
State for nearly four months. During all that time persistent 
attempts with two successive administrations had been made for 
its evacuation. We have already seen how these attempts were 
met by evasion, deception, prevarication and perfidy. We know 
that one administration agreed to maintain the status quo; and 
that this agreement was violated in December, ISCO, when the 
garrison of one fort was removed to a stronger. 

We know that agreement was violated again in January iSfil, 
according to the report of Captain M'cGowan, . Commander of 
the Star of the West. He concealed below the deck of the steam- 
er four officers and two hundred men on arriving ofif Charles- 
ton. His report is in these words: "The soldiers were now 
all put below, and no one allowed on deck except our crt^w." 
Tt failed because of the vigilance of South Carolina. 

Tf the South finally failed to trust the pledges of the Federal 
Government whose fault was it? If the South's unexampled 
forbearance was finall} exhausted, who was to blame? Yet the 



358 RICHARDSON'S KKFENSP: OF THE SOUTH 

South was falsely and treacherously represented to the world 
as the aggressor — so represented hy a great Government which 
was regarded by the world as incapable of false representation. 
She was thus officially misrepresented, and that meant misrep- 
resentation in the name of law and organized Government, beside 
which misrepresentation by an individual was as nothing. 

Fort Sumter surrendered on the 13th of April 18»n. Two 
days later Lincoln issued this proclamation: "Whereas the laws 
of tht> United States have been for some time past and now are 
opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of 
South Carolina. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, -Mississippi, Louis- 
iana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppresse^l 
bv ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers 
vested in the marshals by law : 

"Now. therefore, I, Xbraham Lincoln, President of the I'nited 
States, in virtue of the power, in me vested by the Constitution 
and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call 
forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the ag- 
gregate number of seventy-five thousand in order to suppress such 
combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed — And 

'-,ereb\- command the persfMis composing the combinations afore- 
s;iid to disperse and retire peaceabl\- to their resi)ective abodes 
within twenty days from this date." 

Let it be remembered first that it was not "in virturc of pow- 
ers in me vested by the Constitution and laws." as witnessed 
bv Sec. 1. Art. 4. Constitution, which reads as follows: "The 
United States shall guarantee to e\'ery State in this Union a 
republican form of Govermnent, and shall i)rotect each of them 
against invasion, and on ajjp.lication of the Legislature, or of 
the Eexecutive (When the l^egislature cannot be convened) 
against domestic violence." 

Here the Common Constitution of the States inakes it manda- 
tory of their common agent, the Federal Government to protect 
each State against invasion : and the word invasion is not quali- 
fied. It therefore means any invasion whatsoever Let it also 
be known that Lincoln had declared the sevtn seceded States 
were still in the Union — that they could not secede. If these 
States were still in the L^nion bv what authority did he call on 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 359 

other States of the Union to invade them ? Was it not a palpabk 
violation of the Constitution? — a flagrant usurpation of power 
undelegated ? The language is plainly compulsory, viz : "And 
shall protect each State against im'asion." "Shall protect against 
invasion" certainly does not command invasion. "Protect" is 
the very opposite of coercion. Yet Lincoln construed the Con- 
stitution as investing him with the power to coerce. Common 
sense stands aghast at such a construction. 

Are we told that Mr Lincoln justified his course on the 
ground that the Constitution contains no clause forbidding, in 
express terms, the coercion of a State? Then the reply is if he 
did not know the absence of such a clause in the Constitution 
forbade his coercion of a State he was educationally deficient in 
the necessary qualifications for the Presfid'cnt fc>f this great 
Republic. Is it possible that we must accept Charles Francis 
Adam's theory of fatalism : — that it was foreordained that such a 
man at such a time should be placed at the head of this Govern- 
ment? If so was the Great I Am responsible for all the irregu- 
lar, treacherous and false means by which it was accomplished? 

Again, in this proclamation of Mr. Lincoln we have a very 
strange fiction : Mr. Lincoln refers to the seven seceded States 
as forming "combinations too powerful to be surpressed by the 
ordinary means." and then commands "the aforesaid persons 
composing the combinations" to disperse. Never before nor 
since, have States been referred to as "persons composing com- 
binations." Think of it, "the States of this Union are the 
Sovereign creators of the Federal Government" — created by 
them to be made their common agent ! It was now the strang- 
est thing in all history occurred, viz : The creature -agent com- 
manded seven of these soveregn creators "to disperse and re- 
turn peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days." 
Is it any wonder that President Lincoln thought the States were 
mere persons? 

To make these State-persons, or person-States, disperse he 
levied so large an armv as 75,000 men. This levy meaut- war.. 
Yet the power to declare war was delegated by the States to 
Congress only. The President had no more authority to declare 
war than did the Supreme Court. 



360 RICHARDSON'^ DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Again, if this "combination" had l>een riotous or insurrec- 
tionary it would have been, according to the Constitution, against 
the State and not against the Federal Government. Nor could 
the President call for the militia to suppress it till the State 
had made application for that purpose. It could neither pre- 
cede the application of the State, nor could it be made with- 
out the consent of the State. Sec. 4, Art. I, of the Con- 
stitution, to which we have just referred, is very clear on this 
point. 

Let it be remembered in the next place, that this call for 
troops was not made upon the American people en masse, but 
upon the States. The governors of the Northern States — not 
of the Northern Provinces — made prompt response. Indignant 
replies were returned by all the border States with the one ex- 
ception of Maryland. Governor Hicks of Maryland refused to 
obey the command of the President but did it in more polite 
terms. Thus all the border States refused to furnish troops 
Was this refusal without its meaning? Had their loyalty ever 
before been called in question ? 

Did they not refuse on the ground that the States had never 
delegated to the Federal Government the right to coerce a 
State? The right to do this, as we have seen, "was unanimously 
rejected in the formation of the Constitution." With these bor- 
der States Mr. Greely, and a vast number of other supporters 
of Mr. Lincoln, agreed. With these also agreed the vast follow- 
ing of Mr. Douglas, as well as those of Bell and Breckinbridge. 
May we not again ask, Can it be Charles Francis Adam's do<> 
trine of fatalism is true? "Men of high degree are a lie." (Bible.) 

The people of \'irginia were in Convention assembled when 
this proclamation was issued. Hence \'irginia was the first 
State to T-eply. She loved the Union of the Constitution. For 
this her people and the people of all the Southland would have 
(lied if necessary. But she difl not love another union based 
upor some indefinite fanatical dogma. She had manifested and 
proved her undying "love for the Union of the fathers by her 
earnest but fruitless efforts to jjreserve it. Among these ef- 
forts was the Peace Congress called at her suggestion. She now- 
believed Loth the Constitution and the Uhi31 were broken. For. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH ::«! 

to break the Constitution was to break the Union. The Consti- 
tution was the band that bound the States together. When 
that band was broken the inevitable result was dissolution. 

Lincoln issued his proclamation on the loth day of April, 
1861, two days after the fall of Fort Sumter. Virginia se- 
ceded on the 17th of April, 1861. two days after Lincoln's 
proclamation calling upon her for troops. In doing so she 
declared her absolute right by "An ordinance to repeal the rati- 
fication of the Constitution of the United States, and resume 
all the rights an-d powers granted under said Constitution. 

"The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Consti- 
tution of the United States of America, adopted bv them in Con- 
vention on the 2oth day of June, in the year of our Lord one 
thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that 
the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from 
the people, of the United States, and might be resumed when- 
ever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppres- 
sion, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers 
not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the op- 
pression of the Southern slave-holding States. 

"Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and 
ordain. That the ordinance adopted by the people of this St?ite 
in Convention on the ^•'^th day of June. 1T88. whereby the Con- 
stitution of the United S^tates of America was ratified, and a.V> 
acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying and adopt- 
ing amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and 
abrogated ; that the l^nion between the States and the Other 
States under the Constitution aforesaid, is hereby dissolved, and 
that the State of \'irginia is in full possession and exercise of 
all her rights which belong and appertain to a free and inde- 
pendent State. 

"And they further declare the said Constitution of the United 
States is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State." 

"This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, 
when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this 
State cast at a pole to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday 



362 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted, 

"Adopted by the Convention of Virginia April the 17th, 1861. 

"John Janney, President, 
"John J. Eubanks, Secretary." 

This was \ irginia's reply to President Lincoln's call for troops. 
It said to President Lincoln that "Virginia in adopting the Con- 
stitution in 1788, expressly reserved the right to resume the 
powers granted under the Constitution whenever in her opin- 
ion the same "should be perverted to her injury and oppression." 
Without this reservation Virginia would never have entered the 
L'uion. In admitting Virginia into the Union the States of the 
then Union said to her, "We grant you this right." Virginia 
now thinks the Constitution has been "perverted to her injury 
and oppression" ; and not only to hers but also to the injury of 
the entire South. 

"\'irginia. therefore, replies to your requisition for troops by 
resuming all the rights and powers she granted in 1788 to the 
L'nited States under the Constitution of the same. For seventy- 
three years the unbroken voice of the Federal Government has 
declared this to be \'irginia's undisputed right ; and therefore 
the undisputed right of all the States of the Union. It remains 
for your administration to deny this right so hallowed, so af- 
firmed, and so confirmed, and to turn this great American Gov- 
ernment of free and independent States into a despotism — a despot- 
ism that defies 'the Constitution and laws' you have sworn to 
execute — a despotism that now declares its purpose to coerce 
independent States for exercising a right never disputed by the 
Federal Government till you emerged from the woods into the 
open^a despotism that calls on Virginians to join you in your 
open and known violation of the Constitution, and to unite with 
your forces in shedding the blood of Virginia's brethren for their 
fidelity to the common compact of the Union, and for exercising 
a right they never doubted being theirs. If \'irginians must fight 
they prefer to espouse the cause of the Constitution, the back- 
bone of the l^nion, and the product and essence of the Declaration 
of Independence. 

"In taking this step \irginia respectfully suggests that she 
if in the exercise of her own absolute right. Seventy-three years 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 363 

testify that Xirg^inia had the right in 1788 to ratify the Consti- 
tution and did it with the consent of all the other States ; and 
that the right to enact involves the right to repeal. This is 
an undisputed and undisputable proposition. Therefore, aside 
from her expressed condition on entering the Itiion, X'irginia has 
the absolute right to resume and exercise the powers delegated 
to the common agent of the States." 

It is now evident that the seceding States did not violate "the 
Constitution and laws." It is also evident that Mr. Lincoln 
either ignorantly or knowingly violated "the Constitution and 
laws." If he ignorantly violated them lie is inexcusable. If 
he knowingly violated them he is doubly culpable. Even Mr. 
Adams' fatalism cannot excuse him. For if fatalism controlled 
the destinv of Lincoln, it controls the destiny of all of us; and 
we know there is such a thing as responsibility and responsi- 
bility means free will action. 

We all know that Mr. Lincoln did not make known the clause 
and section and article of the Constitution investing him with 
the i>o\ver to call forth "the militia of the 5;everal States" to 
invade other States. It is also well known that no defender of 
Lincoln's conduct, however ardent he may be, has placed his 
finger upon such a clause and such a section in the Constitution. 
It is therefore mathematically conclusive that no such clause is 
to be found in the Constitution. If no such clau.se can be found 
in the Constitution what was his act but revolutionary? 

There is anotht-r item in President Lincoln's proclamation 
which shows that he \\'as either supremely ignorant of the mag- 
nitude of the task Before him, or that he was deeply conscious 
that the North was not \et sufficiently unified to follow where 
he was leading. We refer to the fact that only seventy-five 
thousand men, were called out, and these for only three months. 
Compare this handful of men to the millions that marched to 
the field of blood : compare the three short months to the more 
than four long eventful years of terrible war. When you have 
done this tell us. do you attribute it to his ignorance of the mag- 
nitude of the tnsk? This perhaps would somewhat aiiieliorate the 
crime of causing enough men to fall in battle to make a line of 
single file more than four hundred miles long", or a line of graves 



364 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

each in touch with the other more than one-third the distance 
around the world. 

Perhaps he comprehended the magnitude of the task, and was 
thoroughly convinced that the North was not yet ready to second 
such a hazardous undertaking. If so, may he not have rea- 
soned thus : When troops are once in the neld and war has actual- 
ly begun the war spirit will be aflame, and the number can be 
increased indefinitely ? 

The secession of Virginia, on the 17th of April was followed 
by that of North Carolina on the 2nd day of May, Arkansas on 
the fith of May, and Tennessee on the 8th of June. Thus Lin- 
coln by this first call for troops forced four other States out of 
the Union, and then declared them in rebellion. These States 
were driven to the necessity of clioosing between secession and 
taking up arms against their comitrymen for exercising a right 
which neither thev nor their countrvmen liad ever doubted to be 
their Constitutional privilege. 

On the 4th of July, ]8(i1. Mr. Lincoln in his message to Con- 
gress convened in extra session, said : 

"It is thus seen that the assault upon the reduction of Fort 
Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part 
oi the assailatits. Thev well knew that the garrison in the fort 
could by no possibility commit aggression upon them. They 
knew — they w^ere expressly notified — that the giving of bread 
to the fe-vv brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which 
would, on that occasion, be attempted unless by resisting so 
much, should provoke more." 

\\'h() can read this message and not know that every word was 
intended to inflame the North. "They knew" indeed. Yes, they 
knew just as thev knew "Faith fully kept. Wait and see." "They 
were exjiressly notified" indeed. Yes, "they were expressly noti- 
fied," just as thev were that "Fort Sumter would be evacuated 
before n letter cnnkl go" [o .Montgomerv. Had thev not been 
told h\ Mr. Lincoln tliis and that more than a do7en times in 
less tlian a ironth., and more than a dozen times deceived? If 
now Mr. Lincoln was not believed whose fault was it? This 
was an official disgruise of fact intended for the North. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 365 

If Mr. Lincoln contemplated conciliatory measures, as he in- 
timates in this message, why did he not relieve the hunger of 
those brave men on a conciliatory basis, By evacuating the fort 
as he published to the world, on the 14th of March, he would 
do? If those brave men were really hungry who but Lincoln 
and his advisers were to blame? These men were kept in that 
fort against the advice of the Commander-in-Chief of the United 
States Army, against the judgment of Lincoln's wisest coun- 
selors, and against the earnest protest of the Commander of the 
garrison. Who was at fault? 

"The assault upon and the reduction of Fort Sumter was in 
no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants'* — 
another disguise of fact to inflame the North. 

Capt. Fox in his report flatly contradicts Mr. Lincoln when 
he informs us that the Commander of the Pawnee refused, with- 
out orders from a superior officer, to enter the Charleston har- 
bor to inaugurate war." That means that Capt. Fox had 
"confidential orders" to enter that harbor. And confidential 
orders meant secret orders. But it is knou>n this commander 
refused to obey an inferior officer on the ground that it meant 
the inauguration of war. 

Horace, Greely also flatly contradicts Mr. Lincoln. His tes- 
timony, like that of Capt. Fox, is of the very strongest kind. 
All know him to have been an extreme partisan and a warm 
and generous supporter of Mr. Lincoln for President. Mr. 
Greely says "Whether the bombardment and reduction of Fort 
Sumter shall or shall not be justified by posterity it is clear 
that the Confederacy had no alternative but its own destruc- 
tion." 

Mr. Thorpe and other high Northern authorities are resj3on- 
sible for the statement that Air. Lincoln on the 28th of March 
1861, definitely decided to coerce the South, and immediately "is- 
sued confidential orders." Yet Mr. Lincoln gravely and offi- 
cialh' tells the world "the assault upon and the reduction of 
Fort Sumter was not in self-defense.' ' 

Lincoln pretended that his acts were sustained by the Con- 
stitution. It M'as pretense and nothing more. This is so evi- 
dent that he stands "solitarv and alone" in clniminf'- the Consti- 



366 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tution as his support. No creditable historian has dared to de 
fend him on Constitutional grounds. Hence Francis Newton 
Thorpe, Chas. Francis Adams. John W. Draper, M. D., LL D. 
of the University of New York, and others of equal rank, have 
sought to defend Mr. Lincoln by other means. They know that 
the Constitution stands an eternal witness in testimony against 
him. 

In another connection we have already quoted Mr. Thorpe and 
Mr. Adams as witnesses on this point. We therefore, for the 
present, content ourselves with the testimony of the scholarly 
Dr. Draper, as given by him in his "The Civil War in Ameri- 
ca," page 25 ; "There is a political force in ideas zvhich silently 
renders protestations, provisions and guarantees, no matter in 
what faith they have been given, of no avail, and ivhich makes 
Constitutions obsolete. Against the uncontrolable growth of the 
anti-slavery idea the South zvas forced to contend." 

We have italicized these words of Dr. Draper to stress their 
significance He boldly asserts that the Amercian Constitution 
was rendered "obsolete" by the force of "the anti-slavery idea" 
in the Sixties. If rendered obsolete was it not by usurpation? 
Jn spite of all "force of ideas could it be anything else but usur- 
pation?" li usurpation, was it less than treason Could it be 
possible to render the Supreme law of any land obsolete by the 
mere "force of ideas" and it not be treason? If treason, by 
what right did that treason cloak itself officially in the garb of 
the Constitution and strut before the world as the bona fide Con- 
stitution itself? 

Treason is doubly treason when it turns saint and personifies 
the Supreme law. Treason is doubly treason, when clothed in 
the robes of State and seated on the throne of power, it curses, 
condemns and murders the friends of the Constitution w'ho still 
believe that Supreme law is yet in force. 

If the Constitution, in the Sixties, was rendered obsolete by 
"the force of ideas" or in any other way, why was it not known? 
Why was it not so proclaimed' On the contrary, the Consti- 
tution was declared to be of force. If of force it was not obso- 
lete. If not obsolete no logic can tnake its violation anything 
other than treason. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 367 

Observe how emphatic, how strong", how sweeping- is this as- 
sertion: "No matter in what faith they may have been given." 
The special attention of the impartial historian is called to these 
remarkable words of Dr. Draper. It is the North's best defence. 
It is their only defence. Two great sections of a common coun- 
try had sworn, of their own free choice, eternal fidelity to a com- 
mon Constitution. The weaker of the two sections was earnest- 
ly and self-sacrificingly faithful to its oath, even unto death. The 
stronger of the two, assuming to be justified by "the force of 
ideas," declared that Constitution to be annulled, "obsolete," and 
yet in its sacred name asserted that the weaker, or Constitution- 
abiding section had outraged it, and were "conspirators," "trai- 
tors" and "rebels." Were ever wrongs more wrong than this? 
Will not an impartial future do this noble, this brave, this Con- 
stitutional weaker section full justice? 

Note again that Dr. Dra])er says. "Against the uncontrollable 
g-rowth of the anti-slaverv idea the South was forced to con- 
tend." If "forced to contend" how could she be the aggressor? 
If not the aggressor how could she be responsible for the war, 
and the rain of tears and the rivers of blood shed in that war? 
The time is near at hand when the South will stand exhonorated 
and vindicated before the bar of the world. When this .shall 
have been done her praises will not be limited to a half, or even 
a full century, but they will endure tlie full circle of time and 
"the eternal years" .shall be hers. 

• .ABSOLUTISM. 

An unconstitutional platform called for an unconstitutional 
policy ; an unconstitutional policv for an unconstitutional 
coercion ; an unconstitutional coercion for an unconstitutional 
war : and an unconstitutional war for an unconstitutional Des- 
potism-Absolutism. Neither Turkish, nor Persian, nor Rus- 
sian, nor any other despot exercised more absolute authority than 
did Lincoln during THE CIVIL WAR. Authority, uncontroll- 
ed and unlimited by either men, or Constitution, or law, was en- 
forced by him at will. 

For 73 years of this .A.merican Republic of independent States 
the three equal and all-important Departments of Government 



368 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

respected the rights of each other, each exercising authority 
within its own prescribed limits. It reinained for Abraham 
Lincoln, on ascending the throne of power in ISGl, to render 
"obsolete" both the Constitution and laws, and exert a dicta- 
torship over the other two equal departments of Government, 
over the Government itself, over the States, and over the people 
at large. Having created the conditions, he made them an ex- 
cuse for the exercise of an unbridled despotism. It was not 
against the Constitution and laws of the Union of the States the 
South rebelled, but against the plain and avowed violations of 
that Constitution, and those laws. In this sense and this sense 
only, the people of the South were true rebels, and as such they 
glory in the appellation. 

The first arbitrary act of Lincoln's administration was the 
rendering null and void the decision of the Supreme Court, de- 
claring slaves to be property, hence could rightfully be ad- 
mitted into the common territories. He next repealed unconsti- 
tutionally the the writ of Habeus Corpus, and assumed the right 
to declare war and raise troops, thus violating these plain words 
of the Constitution : "Congress shall have power to declare war." 
(Art. 4, Sec. 4), and "to raise and support armies." (Art. 1, 
Sec. 8). 

One unconstitutional step invited another and still anotlier. till 
no despot exercised more absolute authority than did the Presi- 
dent of this great and free Republic, boastful of its free institu- 
tions and its liberties. When Rome would destroy Carthage, her 
sinning but repentant tributary province, she first demanded as 
hostages, 300 children of the best families of the doomed city. 
She next by her fair promises persuaded the inhabitants to sur- 
render all their arms of war. She then cruelly declared her 
purpose to raze Carthage to the ground, and render it fit only 
for the plowshare. 

When Lincoln would become the absolute dictator to the sov- 
ereign State of Maryland (not the Province of Maryland) he 
wrote in friendly terms to Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown of 
Baltimore, on the 20th of April, saying "For the future troops 
must be brought here, but I make no point of bringing them 
through Baltimore." On the very next day he invited Mayor 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 369 

Brown and other influential citizens of Baltimore to visit him in 
Washington for an interview. This interview was of a most 
friendly character and was held in the presecne of the Cabinet 
and Gen. Scott. In reporting this interview the Mayor used 
these words : 

"The protection of Washington, he (the President) assever- 
ated with great earnestness, was the sole object of concentrating 
troops there, and he protested that none of the troops brought 
through Maryland were intended for any purposes hostile to 

the State or aggression against the Southern States He 

called on Gen. Scott for his opinion, which the General gave at 
great length, to the effect that troops might be brought through 
Maryland without going through Baltimore. .. .The interview 
terminated with the distinct assurance, on the part of the Presi- 
dent, that no more troops would be sent through Baltimore, un- 
less obstructed in their transit in other directions, and with the 
understanding that the city authorities should do their best to 
restrain their own people. 

"The Mayor and his companions availed themselves of the 
President's full discussion of the questoins of the day to urge 
upon him respectfully, but in the most earnest manner, a course 
cf policy which would give peace to the country, and the with- 
draw?! of all orders contemplating the passage of any troops 
through any part of Maryland." 

This interview, deceptive and false as to the purpose of the 
Administration, occurred on the 21st of April, 1861. On the 5th 
of May, Gen. Butler at the head of the United States troops, 
took possession of the Relay House at the junction of the Wash- 
ington and Baltimore and Ohio Railrad. Eight days later he 
occupied Federal Hill ; and Baltimore was subjected to military 
rule. Gen. Butler immediately issued a proclamation declaring 
his purpose and his authority. In it were these words: "All 
manufacturers of arms and munitions of war are hereby request- 
ed to report to me forthwith so that the lawfulnses of their oc- 
cupations may be known and understood, and all misconstruc- 
tions of their doings avoided." 

He next demanded of the city all the arms stored in her ware- 
house. The police refused to obev this order without authority 



370 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

from the Police Commissioners. Gen. Butler informed the Po- 
lice Commissioners that his demand was by order of the Presi- 
dent. The arms were surrendered, but under protest. They 
were sent to Fort McHenry. 

Thus the city of Baltimore was unarmed. The next step was 
to disarm the private citizens. Georg-e P. Kane, the City Mar- 
shal, was arrested at his home and sent to Fort McHenry. In 
his stead a Provost Marshal was appointed bv Gen. Banks. A 
protest was entered by the Mayor and Police Commissioners 
against the suspension of their functions, saying, "They can 
not consistently with their views of official duty and of the obli- 
gations of their oaths of office, recognize the right of any of 
the officers and men of the police force, as such, to receive orders 
or directions from any other authority than from this Board ; 
and that, in the opinion of this Board, the forcible suspension 
fo their functions suspends at the same time the active opera- 
tions of the police law." (The Baltimore American, June 8, 
1861). The Provost-Marshal at once began the search of private 
houses, and arms of every description were seized. 

Now that both city and private citizens were thus disarmed, 
Gen. Banks announced, on 1st of July, "In pursuance of orders 

issued from headquarters at Washington I have arrested, 

and do detain in the custody of the United States the late mem- 
bers of the Police Board — Messrs. Chas. Howard, Wm. H. Gat- 
chell. Chas. D. Hinks, and John W. Davis." 

This arbitrary and despotic act was followed by the arrest of 
twenty members of the Maryland Legislature, among them the 
Hon. S. Teacle Wallis, who, as a member of the Committee in 
the Legislature to whom the memorial of the Police Commis- 
sioners, arrested in Baltimore, was referred, reported that the 
arrest was "unconstitutional," and "appealed in the most earnest 
manner, to the whole people of the country of all parties, sec- 
tions, and opinions to take warnings by the usurpations mention- 
ed, and come to the rescue of the free institutions of the coun- 
try." (N. Y. World, Aug. (5, 1867). For this presumptions ap- 
peal Wallis. also found lodging in Fort McHenry. For intro- 
ducing in the House of Congress a resolution in the interest of 
peace, Congressman Henry May of Mayrland. was also lodged 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 371 

in this convenient fort. So were many other leading citizens of 
the State without charge, without law, or the form of law. 

Compare Rome's act with that of Lincoln, and tell us which 
was the more despotic, the more cruel and unjust! Carthage 
had enraged her imperial mistress by waging a just war, with- 
out Rome's consent, against her ally, Numidia. The City of 
Baltimore and the State of Maryland had angered Lincoln by 
disputing his constitutional right to send troops through the city 
and State without the State's consent. Rome's first step in sub- 
jugating and punishing Carthage was a demand for 300 children 
of the best Carthaginian families as hostages. Carthage knew 
Rome to be supreme in power, autocratic and cruel and relent- 
less, and complied with the exacting terms, hoping thereby to rest 
in security. Lincoln's first step was one of apparent friendship 
and great respect for the rights of Maryland, protesting that 
"none of the troops brought through Maryland were intended for 
any purposes hostile to the State, or aggression against the South- 
ern States." Maryland, not knowing the imperial autocrat char- 
acter of the free American republic in free North America, was 
greatly pacified by the very cordial interview and very friendly 
assurance of Lincoln and his Cabinet. The Carthaginians said 
to Rome, "Take our children treat them well, and give us a pol- 
icy of peace." The distinguished citizens of Maryland said sub- 
stantially to Lincoln and his Cabinet, "Your assurances are most 
gratifying, and because of your very friendly character we are 
bold to respectfully, but most earnestly beg of you a course of 
policy that will give peace to the entire country ; and to this end 
that you will not send any troops through any part of Maryland." 
Rome's next step was a formal but friendly request for all the 
arms of Sparta to be delivered into her possession. Sparta for 
the sake of peace, and of assuring Rome of her sincerity and 
fidelity, granted her demand. Lincoln's next step was neither 
formal nor friendly. It was the quick military step of the despot 
— the forceful possession of the Relay House, a strategic point 
from which other and more effective steps could be taken in 
rapid succession. Rome's next step was to expose the punitive 
hand of the despot. Lincoln's next stop was to expose the de- 
spotic and punishing arm of an absolute ruler. Federal Hill was 



372 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

occupied by the Military, and with it the city. The Chief of 
the Police was arrested, deposed, and imprisoned. A Provost- 
Marshal took his place, and assumed his duties. The city was 
proclaimed under military rule by order of the President. The 
Mayor, Police Commissioners and prominent citizens were ar- 
rested and thrown into prison. All this was the result of false 
pledges, treachery and absolutism. Rome possessed Carthage 
by bad faith and a relentless exercise of absolute power. Lin- 
coln possessed the State of Maryland by the same means. To 
which empire belongs the greater condemnation? 

As if encouraged by the success of his ruthless acts and un- 
moved by the loud mutterings of discontent heard throughout 
all sections of the country, Ijncoln and his Cabinet did not stop 
here. Thev not only arrested enough of Maryland's Lesrisla- 
ture to prevent a quorum, but made similar arrests in Missouri 
and Kentucky; also in New Jersey. Xew York, Connecticut and 
Vermount and Maine. In acMitcin to tliese. tlic editor of the New 
York Daily News was arrested for denouncing the arbitrary acts 
of the administration as unconstitutional. To denounce any act 
of the Administration was to invite arrest and imprisonment in 
Fort McHenry, or one of the forts. 

"The Civil War from a Northern vStandpoint" has these sig- 
nificant words : "Able lawyers, warm supporters of the Govern- 
ment questioned the Constitutionality of the President's course, 
"The Civil War Fifty Years Ago To-Day" (August 22. 1861) 
also says : "A wave of disloyalty was sweeping the country." 
The same writer adds. "The anti-war papers were confined by 
no means to small country sheets, such as that of Haverhill, 
Mass., but numbered some of the largest journals in the princi- 
ple cities." All were silenced. "Coincident with this castiga- 
tion of the press were many arrests, charged with disloyalty and 
treason, and 50 years ago to-day at this time, the fortresses of 
the North were rapidly filling with State prisoners. ... Prison- 
ers, thus arrested, were styled 'prisoners of State,' or political 
prisoners," the implied charage against them being that they in- 
tended giving aid and comfort to the enemy." How ruthless, 
how arbitrary, how despotic were these usurpations ! 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 373 

The same writer says, "One arrest of this character illus- 
trates the method employed in nearly all. On August the 14th 
the New York police received a dispatch from the Secretary of 
War, ordering the arrest of Robert Muir, who was expecting to 
depart for Europe that day on the steamer Africa, of the Cunard 
line. 

"Detectives sent to the pier found that Mr. Muir was already 
on board the ship. One of them approaching near enough to 
overhear his conversations, and satisfying himself he had found 
his man. said: 'Is your name Mr. Robert Muir?' Receiving an 
affirmative answer, the detective said, 'Will you be kind enough 
to step out on the deck ? There is a gentleman there who wishes 
to say a word to you.' 

After a few other explanatory words, the writer continues: 
" 'At this announcement,' states a reporter. 'Muir seemed taken 
aback, but soon remarked that he would not go ; that he was on 
board a British ship; that he was a British subject, and claimed 
the protection of the British flag." 

He was arrested — illegally and arbitrarily arrested — and thrown 
into "Fort Lafayette by an order from Washington. And his 
baggage was seized." He had important letters, intended for his 
personal benefit in Europe. "Many of his letters were copied 
and some of them printed in the New York newspapers." 

Remember that the writer of "The Civil War Fifty Years 
Ago To-Day'"' referring to the 22nd of Auguts 1861, says: 

"The impHed charge against them, being that they intended giv- 
ing aid and comfort to the enemy." Referring to the 27th of 
August, 1861, he says of Mr. Seward: "He was quoted as say- 
ing that he had only to tap a bell on his desk to cause the arrest 
of any person he might designate .... Suspicion was all that was 
required. Then came the arrest — sudden, genreally secret, often 
at night — and removal to one of the several prisons — Fort Mc- 
Henry at Baltimore, Fort Lafayette in the New York harbor. 
Fort Warren at Boston. Once taken, there was no appeal, and 
in the prison the man might stay until the Secretary saw fit to 
release him." All this in free America ! All this, because the 
South and prominent men in all the States preferred the Fathers' 
construction of the Constitution to that of Abraham Lincoln ! 



a74 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The American Bastile" 

is the very appropriate and significant title given Fort Lafayette 
in the New York harbor. It takes its name from the unjustifia- 
ble tyranny which is comparable only to the acts of the despotic 
monarchs of France. Let us compare the bastiles — that of 
France and that of North America — of imperial France and of 
free North America. 

The Bastile of France was not built for a State prison ; nor 
was that of free America. The Bastile of France was strongly 
fortified, but it was not as impregnable as that of America. The 
Bastile of France had forty rooms in its eight towers, besides a 
number of basement rooms. The prisoners were kept partly in 
the towers and partly in the basement. The American Bastile 
had only six rooms. Prisoners were kept in all these. The ca- 
pacitv of the French Bastile was "70 or 80 prisoners," not an 
average of two to a room. One hundred and seventeen (117) 
prisoners were actually crowded into the six rooms of the Amer- 
ican Bastile, an average of nineteen and one-half (19 1-3) to a 
room. The writer is not informed as to how well the bastile 
of France was lighted, but he is informed that four rooms of 
the American Bastile "were casemated, low-roofted, brick-floored, 
14 by 23 feet inside, with two very small slots in the walls for 
windows and no ventilation when the door is closed." "These 
rooms had each from nine to fifteen occupants — at times even 
more — until they almost equalled the Black Hole of Calcutta." 
Another room in the American Bastile was 08 ft. by 23 ft. In 
this room were "thirt3^-eight (38) people, 38 beds, three wash- 
stands, five 32-pound guns and their carriages, so that elbow 
room was at a premium." "To light this room bv day were 
five port holes and two doors, each port hole being 18 inches 
by 24 inches. The illumination at night consisted of three 
candles, divided among 38 persons." "The water was bad, fre- 
quently full of small tadpoles." In both bastiles "the medical 
attention was insufficient." 

In the French Bastile the prisoners "rarely consisted of per- 
sons of lower ranks, or such as were guilty of actual crimes, but 
of those who were sacrificed to political despotism, Court intrigue 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 375 

and ecclesiastical tyranny — Among these were noblemen, authors, 
Savons, priests, and publishers." In the Ameriacn Bastile the 
prisoners were "not guilty of actual crimes" but consisted of 
persons of unimpeachable characters in all the walks of life, "who 
were sacrificed to political despotism" and executive "intrigue." 
The Hon. Lawrence Langston, member of the Maryland Legis- 
lature, and incarcerated in Fort L,afayette in September 1861, 
thus testifies : 

"The prisoners are those who have been or are now governors, 
foreign ministers, members of Congress, of different legislatures. 
Mayors, Police Commissioners, Officers of the army from col- 
onel to lieutenants, of the Navy of all grades, doctors, lawyers, 
farmers, merchants, editors, sailors and private oarsmen." 

What matchless despotism is this? Of what parentage was it 
born? It was not the legitimate child of the American Consti- 
tution, nor of the American Declaration of Independence. It 
was not born of American Liberty, nor of American institu- 
tions. It is the child of a false "Higher Law" and a false "Con- 
stitution," a false necessity. 

In both the French and the American bastiles "the discipline 
and police regulations were of the strictest kind." Both were 
regarded with mingled feelings of awe and horror. Once with- 
in the walls of either all hope seemed left behind. Bancroft tells 
us in his "Life of Seward," that when a prisoner "desired to send 
for an attorney he was informed that attorneys were entirely 
excluded, and the prisoner who sought their aid would greatly 

prejudice his case If a prisoner wrote a personal letter 

to the Secretary the letter was usually filed. A second, third, 
or fourth petition for liberty was usually sent to the Department, 
but with no result save that the materials for study of history 
or human nature was enlarged." 

Why were attorneys excluded? To admit them would be to 
advertise the horrors of the American Bastile to the world. This 
could not be. Crime stalks in the night. 

The utmost secrecy alike was maintained in both Bastiles. "To 
every letter" in the American Bastile, "even if only a note asking 
for soap or shoes, the prisoners were required to add : "It is my 
desire that this letter or any part of it shall not be published in 



376 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

any newspaper." All this in our own free America ! America 
never had but two despotisms — that of the war period and that 
of the Reconstruction period. It is difficult to tell which was 
the greater of the two. 

When we read of the horrors of Fort Lafayette, Fort McHen- 
ry, and Fort Lawrence is it any wonder that the historian tells 
us, "Secretary Seward and the President were alike denounced 
as tyrants more dreadful than darkest Russia had known, and 
the principal, Fort Lafayette, was termed 'the Bastile of North 
America?' " 

Nothing now remains of the Bastile of France but a bronze 
column to mark its site. It was razed to the ground on the 14th 
of July by 12.000 indignant citizens, and its seven prisoners set 
free. The Bastile of North America, rechristened to the cause 
of Liberty, still stands in the Nev/ York harbor, as a perpetual 
witness to deeds of awe and horror indellibly written by the 
finger of despotism upon the dark and "retributive page of his- 
tory." 

The angry Paris mob demolished the structure of the Bastile 
of France, but no mob, no violence can erase from the page of 
history the just retribution it receives at the hands of all coming 
generations. The North American Bastile in the future, may 
stand a mighty fortress to eternal liberty — God grant that it may ; 
— but the cruel hand of the despot has marred its form, and 
written a dark page of awe and terror in its history that will 
forever be a black record of shame amid its glorious deeds of 
human rights and human liberty. 

Ll^pon what ground did this unbridled, this audaciuos despotism 
leap all constitutional limits, and write so disgraceful a page of 
awe and terror and blood and agony in the book of American 
history? The defenders and applauders of this rank despotism 
have given a false answer to this question — false to sacred 
pledges, false to sacred ties, — ties binding equal States into a 
Union of their own free choice, on equal terms ; an answer false 
to these terms ; and therefore an answer false and traitorous to 
the compact that bound the several States together. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

AN EFFORT TO UNITE THE NORTH, RETAIN 
THE BORDER STATES, AND RECON- 
CILE THE FOREIGN NATIONS: 
THE TRENT AFFAIR. 

At first the gravity of the situation did not appeal either to 
Lincohi or his Cabinet. Although the problems of the hour were 
most momentous, yet, as we are informed by Edward Everett 
Hale, Jr., (American Statesman — Wm. H. Seward), that "at 
first Seward was so unwilling to acknowledge the possibility of 
war that it is doubtful if he had been able to form a foreign 
policy." When war became a possibility the call for only 75,- 
000 men for only 90 days tells what Lincoln and his Cabinet 
thought of it. They attempted at first, to treat it as "a mere 
insurrection" — "a mere domestic affair," of little concern to the 
Government and of no concern whatever to the Nations. 

But when it developed on a vast scale it became a war of pub- 
lic concern, — a war that concerned all nations, for all nations 
had citizens in one or both sections, and more or less commer- 
cial dealings with one or both. The South's cotton figured 
mightily to the alarm of the Administartion, for it was a product 
in which all nations had an interest. Lincoln and his Cabinet 
now looked with great alarm on the mighty struggle they had 
recklessly inagurated. They had denounced the South as efem- 
inate and weak till they believed it, and far underrated her 
strength. 

With this introduction let us now glance at the beginning of 
Lincoln's administration and note his gradual encroachments 
upon Constitutional rights, and the search for winning issues. 

It was the 9th of March, 1861, just five days after Lincoln's in- 
auguration, when an important Cabinet meeting was held. The 
momentous question for discussion was Fort Sumter. As we 
shall see, Lincoln had planned to make this fort one of the all- 
important issues necessary to unite the North. He now urged 



^8 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"the necessity of its reenforcemnet." Chase and Bates opposed 
the proposition. Mr. Seward said, "To make such an attempt 
would inaugurate civil war." Thus on the 9th of March, 1861, 
five to two of Lincoln's Cabinet voted for conciliation. Mr. Hale 
also says, "Mr. Seward would concede nothing outside the Con- 
stitution. "Doubtless 5 to 2 is the ratio approximately repre- 
senting the sentiment of the entire North at that time. The war 
sentiment had to be cultivated, and zvas cultivated. 

Lincoln was not disconcerted by this vote of his Cabinet. He 
quietly and shrewdly bided his time. As a politician he was 
an expert, and to his shrewdness were added some legal lore, 
great common sense, and a wonderful knowledge of human na- 
ture He knew the United States had taken forceful possession 
of Fort Sumter, and that South Carolina honestly claimed it as 
her just and legal right. To his mind this state of affairs fur- 
nished a fit opportunity for a clash between the two sections. 
He knew that by threats and tactful maneuvering of the Gov- 
ernment forces the Confederacy could be made to fire on the fort. 
And that is just zvhat he brought about. What cared he about 
the legal questions invloved? Legal or illegal, it was immaterial 
to him. It would answer his purposes and that ^was enough. 
That this is true, hear what Edward Everett Hale, Jr., p. 278, 
says : "The news of firing on Fort Sumter aroused the North 
to a passion of humiliation and anger and patriotism. Lincoln, 
it may be supposed, received it with resignation. He had prob 
ablv foreseen its necessity. Necessary or not, the event had 
placed him in the position in which he desired to stand. The 
Government had been attacked. It must now appeal to all that 
were loyal to come to its rescue. Congress was summoned to 
assemble, and a call for troops was sent to every State." 

Thus by threats and shrewd maneuvers Lincoln inaugurated 
war, and laid the blame on the South. All the authorities in 
the world might say, "The party who rendered force necessary 
was the aggressor, and not the one who fired the first shot." 
What cared he for authorities! He now had the issue he had 
longed for — the issue that would unite his divided Cabinet, and 
unite and inflame to a red heat the divided North. He put in 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 379 

motion a great wave of excitement that beat madly against every 
Northern shore, by summoning Congress to assemble, and call- 
ing on all the States for troops. He thus magnified an act of 
self-defense on the part of the South into a most malignant at- 
tack upon the Government. He declared with a trumpet blast 
that the war had begun, and all loyal citizens must now fly to 
its rescue, and Mr. Hale tells us the North was aroused to "a 
passion of humiliation and anger and patriotism." 

This impatient assembling of Congress with its mad wild war- 
cry, heard through the press agitations, and from pulpit and fo- 
rum, culminated in an unexampled display of "passion and anger 
but not of "patriotism." It was the unreasoning passion of the 
mob. Lincoln had brought about a crisis in which all had to 
decide one way or the other. In the North the war-cry was 
heard in every hamlet and home from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific. In the South the war-cry in reply was heard from the At- 
lantic to the Rio Grande and the Rockies. 

The forbearance of the South had tried Lincoln's patience. 
For the South had resolved not to fire on Fort Sumter except 
in a case of necessity. Be was therefore compelled to declare 
it to be his purpose to reinforce tliis fort, and follow this declara- 
tion with a great relief squadron instructed to provision and 
reinforce the fort. The hour designated as the time for giving 
the information as to its reinforcement was also the hour desig- 
nated as the time for the arrival of the fleet in the harbor of 
Charleston. To the Confederacy it was a moment of urgency 
and expectation — urgency in hasty preparation for action, and ex- 
pectation in the constantly looked for war fleet to hover about 
the walls of grim old Fort Sumter. 

Note the words : "He had probably foreseen its necessity," 
and "the event had placed him in the position in which he desired 
to stand." What mean the words "foreseen" and "desired" if 
they do not testify that he had planned for this very result? To 
desire without an efifort to have that desire fulfilled would be 
equivalent to no desire at all. To foresee an event, impossible 
of occurrence without his Interference, is also absolute proof 
of his having planned it. Therefore it was deliberately planned ; 



380 HirHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and not without a purpose. That purjiose was to create an is- 
sue that would inflame and unite the North. 

The word "necessity" is also pregnant with meaning-. It is 
conclusive proof that Lincoln had no issue that appealed to the 
great Northern masses : and that it 7vas absolutely necessary to 
work some device by which the uninformed and imsuspecting 
could be induced to take up arms. He could not appeal to the 
Constitution. Seward had said to attemj^t to reinforce this fort 
"would inaugurate civil war," and that he would take no step 
"outside the Constitution." Neither of these declarations was 
disputed. Thus the word "necessity" proves also that Lincoln's 
entire Cabinet agreed with Seward as to the Constitution. It is a 
bad cause that is under the "necessity" of abandoning in its de- 
fence the great fundamental law of the Government, and manu- 
facturing a side issue that appeals to "passion and anger." 

In reality there was no occasion for war. If Lincoln had not 
desired war he would not have found in Fort Sumter the occa- 
sion for inaugurating war. In less than a half century since 
that great war the time has come when all high Constitutional 
authorities have swept Lincoln's shams to one side, and have 
declared that the South acted within her rights and within the 
bounds of her imperiled duty in firing on that fort. If Lincoln 
had been as true to the law as he was to his party platform there 
would have been no necessity for firing on Fort Sumter, no nec- 
essity for disunion, no necessity for war. 

It was even proposed in that Cabinet meeting "to declare 
war against France and Spain and probably England." (Hale, 
p. 375). At this day the proposition seems very absurd. Yet 
Hale justifies it by saying, "The idea was that the pressure of 
foreign war would rally to the Union all the doubtful States and 
perhaps some of the seceding States or part of them." Such 
ignorance of the character of the Southern people is very wonder- 
ful ! Tliey seemed to have had as little conception of the mo- 
tives that prompted the Southern States to withdraw from the 
Union as a baboon of the eclipse of the sun. Yet these were 
the dio-nitaries of the great American Republic in consultation as 
to the wisest policy for the good of the country! Their ignor- 
ance was equaled only by their fanaticism on the question of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 381 

slavery. It may be possible, however, that these reasons were 
given as a mere blind. For Gideon Wells in his diary, 12th of 
August, 1862, speaks of the "bugaboo of a foreign war. a bug- 
aboo which Seward well knew how to use." 

The Northern statesmen were by no means unanimous in the 
opinion that the Confederacy was not justified in firing on fort 
Sumter. Hence it was necessary to add another issue, that of 
representing 

"The South as a People Fighting For Slavery." 

It was a false issue, but what cared they for that? John R. 
Deering in "Lee And His Cause" says, "A recent official report 
shows that more than 80 per cent, of the Confederate Soldiers 
owned no slaves. Gen. Joe Johnston, second only to Lee in 
rank "never owned a slave," while Gen, Grant owned slaves up 
to the time of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. Dr. Hunter 
McGuire, Gen. Stonewall Jackson's chief surgeon, testifies that 
both Lee and Jackson were opposed to slavery, and "were in fa- 
vor of freeing all the slaves in the South," and "paying for them 
after our independence had been gained." It has been said of 
Gen. Loring that he freed 200 slaves before the war. How true 
this statement is we do not know. But it is certain that thou- 
sands of Southerners would have freed their slaves had the 
proper conditions existed. It was Northern antagonism that de- 
ferred the day when Southern slaves could have been freed with 
safety. 

If the South defended slavery it was because she could not 
defend her firesides, her legal and inherent rights, without de- 
fending that institution so closely associated with these rights. 
Mr. Hale does the South a bit of justice when he says, "But 
the war for Union was not a war for fredeom from the North- 
ern standpoint only. The South was also contending for free- 
dom, for freedom to manage its own domestic affairs as it saw 
fit ; and to the Southern mind the Union in trying to prevent 
their doing so was quite as much a tyrant as George III had 
been." Th's bit of justice from the pen of Edward Everett 
Hale, Jr., is but the echo of that unanimous voice that will in- 
crease in volume as the ages roll. 



382 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

It was urged in that Cabinet discussion that the agitation of 
slavery had brought about "a crisis that threatened the exist- 
ence of the Union." They did not discuss where that agitation 
began. They did not discuss the question who were still adding 
fuel to the fires of that agitation. All men knew then, and all 
men now know that agitation was confined to the North exclu- 
sively. If it was the agitation of slavery that threatened the 
existence of the Union it was this same agitation that inaug- 
urated the war. Who then can deny the inevitable conclusion 
that the North began the war? If then the North began the 
war, with what hypocrisy was the charge of treason made against 
the South ! The charge could not have been sustained even then, 
had it not come from the lungs of the Chief Magistrate. Lin- 
coln was the representative of millions. When he opened his 
mouth it was the open mouth of millions. When he spoke it was 
the voice of millions — a voice as powerful as though millions of 
tongues had spoken. Its mighty volume filled the continent, 
entering every home and every mountain crevice. It was, there- 
fore, the one voice of supreme dignity and power. Its utter- 
ances, true or false, were received as the gospel truth. Before 
it all things sacred went down. Truth was crushed and justice 
dethroned. 

But while the South was not fighting, except indirectly, for 
the institution of slavery, it is of record in the plain stern lan- 
guage of fact, that the North "fought for the freeing of the 
slaves and for that alone." Their claim was, therefore, the more 
plausible to the Northern masses, that the South was fighting 
for slavery, and for that alone. 

On the 26th day of September, 1861, in the midst of the gloom 
of defeat, Lincoln issued, at the unanimous request of Congress, 
a proclamation, calling upon the people to observe a day of "Pub- 
lic Prayer, Humiliation and Fasting." The chronicler of events 
significantly says: "It was with a militant rather than a chas- 
tened spirit that most of the ministers of the North mounted their 
pulpits to deliver special sermons suggested by the President's 
proclamation. 

"The result was a great outpouring of eloquence against sla- 
very, the greatest perhaps that had ever been known in one day 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 383 

since the agitation which resulted in war had begun. . . .Taken to- 
gether these utterances showed how earnestly the Northern peo- 
ple believed, as a whole, that the war was fought for the freeing of 
the slaves and for that alone. 

"Had some members of Congress who had voted for this fast 
day been able to foresee this deep combined utterance on the 
subject that the most adroit politicians of the North had sought 
to keep in the background, in the opening of the war, there is 
little doubt that they would not have asked the President to 
give the ministers of the North an opportunity to express them- 
selves on the great issues of the day." (The Civil War Fifty 
Years Ago To-Day) . 

Note that the Northern ministers well knew what was the 
purpose of that war ; and that their "utterances showed how 
earnestly the Northern people as a whole believed that the war 
was fought for the freeing of the slaves, and for that alone." 
Note too the deception practiced by "adroit politicians" in Con- 
gress, seeking to keep the real issue "in the background." Lin- 
coln and his Cabinet practiced the same deception. When deal- 
ing with the border States "slavery was not to be interfered 
with." When dealing with the North and foreign governments 
"the war was against slavery." Could duplicity like this lift 
holy hands to high Heaven? Does God open the store house 
of his blessings in answer to prayers from the lips of deception? 
Prayers without sincerity are never indorsed in heaven. On the 
part of the Northern ministers and Northern masses there was 
no insincerity. They could lift holy hands, but what of Lincoln 
and his Cabinet and the adroit politician in Congress? 

Thus it is clearly shown that the North was fighting to free 
the slaves of the South and "for that alone." Deeply conscious 
of this fact, they raised the false issue that "the South was 
fighting for slavery and that alone." In the early months of 
1861 the Administration became greatly alarmed for fear of 
England's recognizing the Southern Confederacy. On May 25th 
Horace Greely said, "Nothing is more clear than that England 
will do nothing to give aid or comfort, or which has the appear- 
ance of giving aid and comfort to a people fighting for slavery," 
showing how universally that false statement was received as 



384 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

true without question. In order that this false cry might be 
as effective in Europe as in the Northern States the following 
distinguished private citizens were dispatched to England, viz : 
"Archibishop Hughes, the distinguished Roman Catholic Prelate 
of New York — whose position especially fitted him for such a 
mission in France, — Bishop Mcllvaine of the Portestant Epis- 
copal Church, and with them his own intimate friend, the veteran 
politician and editor, Thurlow Weed." 

But it was soon realized that the mere agitation of slavery 
even with the great excitement they had raised over Fort Sum- 
ter, was not enough. For even the North was divided on this 
issue and besides it might, lose them the border States. Mr. 
Hale says "the Southern party was influential in all the border 
States and how to strengthen the hands of the Union was a dif- 
ficult problem. Therefore it was urged that the Administration, 
for the moment, should set aside the question of slavery," and 
take the definite position of 

"Mmntaining the Union." 

"For two or three days after the firing on Fort Sumter the 
New York Tribune headed its war news as 'The Proslavery 
War.' Before the week was up it became 'The War for the Un- 
ion.'" (Hale). 

What rallving cry was this? Calhoun and Toombs and Yan- 
cey and Stephens and Davis and all the South to a man loved 
the Union. All the North to a man loved the Union. But the 
South loved the Union of the Constitution — the Union of the 
fathers. The North loved a Union disguised as that of the 
true, while in realitv it was the Union of a plaftorm, rebuked 
by the decision of the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, and, 
therefore, a false Union. For three years the trumpet note of 
this highest judicial authority known to the Republic, had rung 
out its thunder peals in the name of the law that the Lincoln 
platform was rebellion against the Constitution and hence against 
the Government. 

How were the great Northern masses deceived by this false 
Uriion disguised as the true? Official sanction and official pro- 
mulgation had been mighty factors in accomplishing this result. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 385 

The hand of Despotism by its terrible work liad also accomplish- 
ed much by silencing all opposition. Then, too, this platform 
Union was kept in the silent background while the simple term 
"Union" and the simple term "Constitution" were mentioned in 
the same breath as one and inseparable. This linking them thus 
together was a master stroke. The uninformed and unsuspect- 
ing took it for granted there could be but one thing called "the 
Union"' and but one thin^ called "the Constitution." Their de- 
ception was only equaled by their fervency. 

The Administration and Cabinet now had three great rallying 
issues — all false to fact but represented as true to fact : Fort 
Sumter, Slaz'ery and the Union. They constituted the strings 
of the Government harp upon which Lincoln and his Cabinet 
played as it suited them with selected variations. As we have 
already intimated the least word that falls from the lips of the 
Chief Magistrate of a great Government receives the attention 
of listening millions. Hence in spite of the highest and best au- 
thorities to the contrary, the Northern masses believed that the 
firing on Fort Sumter inaugurated the war; that the South de- 
spised the Union of the Constitution ; and was fighting simply 
to defend slavery. 

One of the variations on that wonderful harp of three strings 
was 

The Trent A if air. 

On a dark night in October, 1861, two Confederate envoys 
with their families and secretaries ran the blockade at Charles- 
ton in the steamer Theodora, and arrived safely at Havana. 
These envoys were James Mason of Virginia and John Slidell 
of Louisiana. At Havana they embarked on the British steamer 
Trent, which was destined for St. Thomas. Capt. Charles Wilkes 
commanding the United States frigate San Jacinto, was on the 
watch, and boarded the Trent between Havana and St. Thomas. 
He forcibly transferred Mason and Slidell with their secretaries 
to his own steamer. On the loth of November, 1861, the San 
Jacinto halted at Fortress Monroe for coal, and the message 
flashed to the world that Mason and Slidell were prisoners 
aboard the San Jacinto which was going directly to New York. 
When Capt. Wilkes arrived at New York, he found orders avv^ait- 



386 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ing him from Washington to carry the prisoners to Boston 
and there incarcerate them in Fort Warren. Thus the Govern- 
ment sanctioned the outrage. 

Thornton Kirkland Lothrop in his "William H. Seward," pages 
334-3:;i5, says of this event: "By universal consent Wilkes be- 
came at once a hero; the newspapers and people prized him as 
if he had won a great naval victory ; he was feasted in Boston 
and honored in New York. The Secretary of the Navy, on re- 
ceiving his report, wrote him : 'Especially do T congratulate you 
on the great public service you have rendered in the capture of 
the rebel commissioners. . . .Your conduct in seizing these public 
enemies was marked by intelligence, ability, decision and firm- 
ness, and has the emphatic approval of this department.' The 
annual report of the Naval Department repeated and indorsed 
this approval, and when Congress met the House of Represen- 
tatives voted Capt. Wilkes a gold medal for his good conduct 
in promptly arresting the rebel ambassadors." 

Mr. Wells says, "No man was more elated and jubilant than 
Seward at the capture of the emissaries, and that for a time he 
made no attempt to conceal his gratification and approval of 
the act of Wilkes." (Lothrop, p. 325). The biographers of 
Lincoln testify to the same fact. Mr. Lothrop continues : "Mr. 
Seward sent for McClellan when he first learned of the capture, 
and asked him what we could do if Great Britain made a peremp- 
tory demand for Mason and Slidell, and the alternative was either 
surrender or war ; that he was told in reply that if we went to 
war with England we must at once abandon all hope of keeping 
the South in the Union ; and that he, therefore, said, "If the 
matter took that turn they must at once be given up." (page 
327). 

Wilkes had violated international law, and offered an insult 
to a great nation. It has been said he was but obeying orders. 
It is certain unstinted praise was given him by Lincoln and 
his Cabinet and Congress. It is certain the event was magnified 
and applauded by the press and pulpit. What meant the lauda- 
tions of Congress? What the emphatic approval of the Navy 
Department? What the exuberance of Seward? What the earn- 
est desires of Lincoln to retain the prisoners? What the great 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 387 

display of head lines in the daily and weekly press? What the 
feasting-s of Wilkes in Boston? What the honors shown him in 
New York? What meant all these, and more, if not to inflame 
and enthuse the North? Lincoln and his entire Cabinet real- 
ized that they had forcibly taken the commissioners from a 
neutral ship pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage, and had 
g-iven an affront to the British flag, and had violated inter- 
national law. Ordinarily they would have rebuked Wilkes. 
But now they honored him instead. Why? Because they need- 
ed a united North. They were turning every way for an ex- 
citing event. This came in the very nick of time. The temp- 
tation to use it was too great for resistance in this hour of neces- 
sity." They decided to make the most of it and depend on 
diplomacy. They entertained a hope that they could settle the 
question by arbitration. 

But England's method of arbitration was in the shape of an 
ultimatum. This ultimatum left no alternative. It was "the 
surrender of the prisoners of war" and "an apology." The 
limit was "seven days." If not complied with in that time, Lord 
Lyons was instructed "to close the legation, remove the ar- 
chives, notify the admiral of the British Atlantic fleet and Gov- 
ernors of the North American and West Indian Colonies and 
return home." 

Now the situation changed. Exuberance left the Cabinet. 
Shame and humiliation took the place of exultation. Seward 
"shutting himself in his room and barring the door against all 
interruption, began at once" his apology and explanation. (Loth- 
rop p. 330). The task was most difficult. The United States 
had been the foremost nation in resisting the right of "visit 
and search." She had made it the cause of the war of 1812. 
But yesterday, explicit commendations of the act reverberated in 
the halls of Congress, were heard in the meetings of the Cab- 
inet, and were taken up by the press and repeated throughout 
all the North. What would the great American Premier now 
do? Both the war and the Navy Departments of Great Britain 
were active in making extensive preparations to enforce the 
demand. When the Secretary of State emerged from that room 
the haughty temper had disappeared. He held in his hand a 



588 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

lengthy, and ingenius reply to England's demand. This he 
handed to Britain's minister at Washington City. To him he 
simply said : "The four persons in question are now held in 
military custody at Fort Warren, in the State of Massachu- 
setts. They will be cheerfully liberated. Your Lordship will 
please indicate a time for receiving them." "How hath the 
mighty fallen !" 

The time was when this great American Republic refused to 
sanction aggression like this ; when she demanded at tlie can- 
non's mouth and in the smoke of battle "the right of friendly 
ships to pass unquestioned on the highway of nations :" when 
she demanded in a stern voice of war "the right of a neutral 
flag to protect everything not contraband of war." But that 
was a time when arrogance and (lu]i]icit\ had not led the Gov- 
ernment "into false positions and when the roar of the British 
lion could not make Americans retract what they had deliber- 
ately avowed." 

The ultimatum of Great Britain was handed to Mr. Seward 
by Lord Lyons on the 23d of December, 1861. On the 25th 
of December Seward emerged from his seclusion and present- 
ed his reply. He wrote to a friend, "It was considered on my 
presentation of it on the 2oth and 2(!th of December. The Gov- 
ernment when it took up the subject had no idea of the grounds 
upon which it would explain its action." Mr. Bates, the Attor- 
ney General, says in his diary: "Seward read his proposed dis- 
patch. It was examined and criticized by us all. . .All of us 
were impressed with the magnitude of the subject . . .1 urged 
the necessity of the case — that to go to war with England is 
to abandon all hope of suppressing the rebellion. . . The mari- 
time superiority of Great Britain would sweep us from all the 
Southern waters. Our trade would be utterly ruined and our 
treasury bankrupt. There was great reluctance on the part of 
some members of the Cabinet — and even the President him- 
self, acknowledged these obvious truths; but all yielded to, and 
unanimously concurred in, Mr. Seward's letter. . . after some 
verbal and formal amendments." Mr. Chase wrote in his jour- 
nal: "I give my adhesion, therefore, to the conclusion at which 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 389 

the Secretary of State has arrived. It is gall and wormwood 
to me." 

"After Lincoln's death there was found among his papers 
the draft of a letter proposing arbitration as a solution of the 
difficulty. (Lothrop p. 335). 

Mr. Bates says : "That when the Cabinet separated on Christ- 
mas day, after discussing Seward's dispatch the President said 
to him: 'Your answer states the reason why they ought to be 
given up; now I've a mind to try my hand at stating the rea- 
sons why they ought not to be given up. . . Lincoln was con- 
vinced, though against his will, that the result that Seward had 
reached could not be avoided." (Lothrop p. 336). It is evi- 
dent the roar of the British lion, the movements of the Brit- 
ish Xavy, the mobilizing of British soldiers on the border of 
Canada, had in them more convincing logic than any words 
of Seward. "I've a mind to try my hand," tells with what 
reluctance the President gave up the prisoners. "Especially do I 
congratulate you on the great pubHc service you have rendered 
in the capture of the rebel commissioners," tells with what tardi- 
ness the Navy Department surrendered them. "It is gall and 
wormwood to me," tells with what frowns Chase swallowed the 
dose. "No man was more elated and jubilant than Seward at 
the capture of the emissaries," tells how reluctantly the Secre- 
tary of State bowed his head in consent. "Congress voted Capt. 
Wilkes a gold medal for his good conduct," shows with what 
humiliation the House of Representatives said, "We submit to 
the demands of the Lion." Thus no argument weighed with 
Congress, with Lincoln, with his Cabinet, but superior force. 
Right and wrong were interchangeable virtues when it suited 
their purpose. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

"Nothing short of Constitutional amendment could give free- 
dom to our black millions" — Julian. "He (Lincoln) wisely em- 
ployed a popular delusion in the salvation of his country." — 
Julian. "The simple truth should now be told." — Julian. "Call- 
ing the calf's tail a fifth leg does not make it a leg." — Lincoln. 
"I believe I have no right to do so." — Lincoln. "Any people 
anywhere have the right to rise up and shake ofif the existing 
Government.' — Lincoln. "I have no purpose to interfere with 
the institution of slavery within the States." — Lincoln. "It is 
startling to say Congress can free a slave within a State." — 
Lincoln. "It is natural that the South should resist assaults 
upon her domestic institutions." — Ex-President Buchanan. "The 
whole civilized world could be outraged if private property 
should be generally confiscated, and private rights annulled." — 
Chief Justice Marshall. "No one has declared that right (to 
hold slaves) in plainer terms than you have." — The Border 
States Representatives to Lincoln. "We complain that the Union 
cause has suffered and is suffering from mistaken deference to 
rebel slavery." — The Abolition Press. 



The year 1863 opened with the Federal Government in great 
gloom. Conferedate victories and Northern dissatisfaction had 
rendered the Administration desperate. Civilized warfare was 
abandoned. Vast military forces were turned into hordes of 
plunderers. The Constitution as construed by the courts was 
trampled in the dust. All this and more was done under the 
plea of necessity, as if necessity could change a statute. 

Yet, there never was a time when the eleven seceding States 
had objected to the enforcement of the Constitution as con- 
strued by the fathers and the courts; never a time when peace 
and fraternity were impossible under the execution of the Con- 
stitution in its long accepted sense. Upon what ground then 
did imperious Necessity stand? 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 391 

All approaches by the administration upon unconstitutional 
ground were gradual. Hence there was no exception in the 
case of the Emancipation Proclamation. Morse says "it was 
an exercise of the President's war-power. They (Abolitionists) 
demanded the proclamation (Emancipation) ; and the difficulty 
in the way of it was that Mr. Lincoln felt, and a great ma- 
jority of Northern men were positive in the opinion, that such 
a proclamation at this time would not be an honest exercise of 
war-power, that it would be only falsely and colorably so-called." 
(Morse p. 91). 

Note in these words the absolute necessity of prudent ap- 
proaches. If public opinion had remained as it then was the 
all-important proclamation would never have been issued, as 
"a war-measure." Why? Because at this time a great diffi- 
culty interposed. It was no less than the important fact that 
"a great majority of Northern men opposed it." They not only 
opposed it, but they "were positive" in their opposition. But this 
difficulty gradually gave way under shrewd manipulation. 

Julian says, "Nothing short of a Constitutional amendment 
could at once give freedom to our black millions and make their 
re-enslavement impossible. . . All this is now attested by very 
high authorities on international and constitutional law ; and 
while it takes nothing from the glory of M'r. Lincoln as the 
great emancipator, it shows how wisely he employed a splendid 
popular delusion in the salvation of his country. . . The simple 
truth should now be told, and the honor due to Mr. Lincoln 
placed upon its just foundation." (p. 244). 

That all-important Constitutional amendment was not made 
during Lincoln's life. The Emancipation Proclamation was there- 
fore without Constitutional authority. And Julian says Lincoln 
knew this. If Julian is to be believed what becomes of the sol- 
emnity of Lincoln's message to his "dissatisfied countrymen: 
You have no oath registered in Heaven ?" 

Note also the significance of the words, "All this is now at- 
tested by very high authorities on Constitutional and Interna- 
tional law." This Proclamation was therefore unconstitutional 
on the evidence of very high authorities. If this be true, does 
Mr. Julian appreciate the real meaning of "a popular delusion" 



392 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

which Lincoln so effectively used? According to Webster, delu- 
sion is "a false representation." And what depended upon that 
false representation? Can a war founded on false representa- 
tions, and justified on false representations, be rightfully declared 
a war based on truth and justice? Can this be true and yet 
take nothing from the glory of him who used it for the slaughter 
of an innocent people? The true nature of all glory is that 
of the principles upon which it is based. If it rest on false- 
hood is it not the glory of false representations? If it rest on 
truth, is it not the glory of immortal truth, and as enduring 
as truth's eternal pillars? 

But there is another very damaging feature about this "splen- 
did popular delusion." It was not nation-wide. It was con- 
fined exclusively to the North. Can the ruler of a great coun- 
try justify the use of a popular delusoin limited entirely to one 
of the two sections of that country as a basis of a righteous 
war against the other? If not, was the war justifiable? How 
is it that such a war takes nothing from the glory of that ruler? 
Does not Mr. Julian confess that this delusion of the Xorth, 
however "splendid and popular." was not above reproach when 
he declares "the simple truth should noiv be told?" Now after 
forty years of false testimony? — now after having been baptized 
in fratricidal blood? — now after having drained the deluded sec- 
tion of $8,000,000,000 in treasure, and of the lives of hundreds 
of thousands of its best citizens. If Mr. Julian will place an 
estimate upon his own Hfe, and then multiply that sum by the 
number of all that silent army asleep on the tented field of blood, 
he will realize that the cost of that war in treasure will be but 
as a drop to the vast ocean, to the loss in both treasure and lives 
it brought to either section. 

If deceptions, or misleadings. or "false representations" con- 
stitute true fidelity and true glory they are virtues worthy to be 
practiced by the good and true. They are exalting to character. 
They deserve to be honored and immortalized. But who dig- 
nifies tbe-r, r^ \irtues? Who thinks they exalt human charac- 
ter? If they are not virtues, when Lincoln flew from the sacred 
precincts of the Constitution and sought shelter under the shield 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 393 

of that "splendid popular delusion" of the North, was he true 
to that "sacred oath" of his registered in the Court of Heaven ? 
When in the name of that same splendid popular delusion of 
the North he denounced the undeluded South as "traitors" and 
"conspirators," was he not doubly deceptive and doubly untrue 
to that sacred oath registered so high ? 

When we consider that these denunciations of the undeluded 
South were proclaimed as truth to all the civilized world in the 
name of the Constitution of the land, what shall be thought of 
the enormity of that splendid popular delusion? The writer 
confesses he hesitates to pen these just conclusions because the\' 
are so severe, but he finds his justification in the serious facts 
themselves, and in the knowledge that these and all their kin- 
dred denunciations were applied in the Sixties and long after- 
wards to his beloved South. 

We are writing at a time (April 30, 1912) when the whole 
civilized world is in mourning because of the destruction of the 
great Titanic. The more than 1,500 souls that found graves 
many fathoms deep in the wide Atlantic bear no comparison to 
the mighty host of brave hearts that sank into the shallow 
graves under the stroke of that splendid popular delusion of the 
North. The destruction of that giant of the seas by the noise- 
less, but irresistible march of the huge iceberg bears no com- 
parison to the great destruction of cities and towns and villages 
and homes and fields and the ebbings of human lives on the field 
of strife. 

Some one is responsible for every delusion. Many delusions 
are harmless. But a delusion so ruinous in its results, and so 
vast in extent as to cover the greater section of this entire 
North American Republic, in the hands of a wily politician 
becomes a mighty engine of destruction indeed. Julian says. 
"Lincoln used this splendid popular delusion in the salvation of 
his country." He therefore was familiar with its existence. He 
knew its origin ; the pap that gave it suck ; the home in which 
it was reared, and the playground on which it sported. He 
knew it nursed on unconstitutional milk; fed on unconstitutional 
meat; breathed unconstitutional air; wore unconstitutional gar- 
ments; was educated in unconstitutional schools; buckled on un- 



394 RICHARDSO>v'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

constitutional sword ; and waged an unconstitutional war against 
a Constitutional South, 

Had the sword of that Northern delusion been drawn against 
any people less conservative than the very conservative South, 
there would have been great danger of the wreck of the Gov- 
ernment and the substitution in its stead of a despotism of 
which the three American Bastiles are a type. It was the good 
sense of the Southern people and their love of contented and 
happy homes that definitely decided the issues of war settled 
when their immortal Lee surrendered his sword at Appomatox. 
It was their high state of civilization that made them so appre- 
ciative of stable government as to endure the wrongs and insults 
of the Reconstruction period. It was their conservatism in this 
trying hour that saved the wreck of the Constitution and pre- 
served it with comparatively few changes from the vortex of 
the Revolution. 

"A splendid popular delusion may be fanatical. It was fanat- 
ical. But conservatism is never fanatical. Delusion knows only 
false representations, dishonor and despotism. No oaths can 
bind it. No pleas for justice can restrain it. All it dreads 
are hard blows. These the South gave till her serried ranks had 
been thinned out to mere picket lines, till her homes were in 
ashes, and her granaries were empty, and the remnant of her con- 
servative sons, still unconquered and unterrified, decided that to 
prolong the war would be madness. Then, and not till then, 
did they make honorable terms and surrender their arms. But 
they were heroes still . Not a cringing knee did they bend. Each 
stood erect, every inch a gentleman, every inch a soldier, as 
fearless and as brave as when their banners waved in triumph 
over their victorious legions. Unconquered and unconquerable, 
they were sublime in the midst of their misfortunes. So terri- 
ble had been their blows that they were dreaded still. Even little 
Alex Stephens was incarcerated for fear he would yet head a 
rebellion. Delusion never feels safe even when victorious. It 
fears its own tactics— its own shadow. It is a species of wrong, 
and wrong is never contented, never happy, never safe, never 
brave. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 395 

Conservatism is never more conservative than when standing 
in the midst of the ashes of her once splendid possessions with 
head erect and eyes intent on the future. This was the conserva- 
tism of the South. It now bent its energies, so much dreaded 
in war, to the problems of peace. The same sublime spirit that 
led the sons of the South to resist unconstitutional encroach- 
ments upon their rights now bade them turn their energies to 
rebuilding their devastated homes, and saving what they could 
of the Constitution for which they had shed their richest blood 
with a daring and a bravery that immortalized their heroism, 
and attested their sincerity in the righteousness of their cause. 
As soldiers they were matchless in their efforts to preserve un- 
impaired the Constitution, their priceless heritage. As citizens 
in time of peace, they were matchless in rebuilding their demol- 
ished homes, restoring their devastated fields, refilling their 
empty granaries and re-establishing a civilization that challenges 
comparison — a new civilization whose prosperity and splendor 
promise a future civilization more prosperous and more resplend- 
ent still. 

The South is justly proud of her heroes in war and in peace. 
They are equaled only by the South's heroines. These suffered 
not less in time of war than did her sons. The trial of brave 
hearts is not found alone in the terrors of battle. It is also found 
in the quiet home where the husband (house-band) or the noble 
son is absent, confronting the foe on the tented field. There 
is a heart-pain in such a home that surpasses in intensity any 
that the missiles of war can give. These heart-pangs the wom- 
en of the South endured for four long years with a devotion 
and a heroism unexcelled even by that of their husbands, sons, 
brothers and sweethearts on the field of battle. When the war- 
cloud had gone, and the duties of peace called the brave rem- 
nant of the battle-scarred to noble effort, again the daughters 
of the South stood by their sides with hearts of courage and 
examples of inspiration that challenged the admiration of the 
world. Such heroes and heroines were and are and ever will be 
incapable of "treason" and "rebellion." The only perfect man 
was derided as an imposter and was crucified. The ^only loyal 
section of the Union was denounced as "conspirators," and was 



396 RICHARDSON'S DRP^ENSE OF THE SOUTH 

robbed and murdered. The once hated and abused Christ is 
now the one resplendent star in all the firmament. It is too 
much to expect that the once hated and abused South will iti 
time become the one resplendent star in the political firmament 
of all America? "Truth crushed to earth will rise again," and 
in her resurrected life will triumph over "Delusion" and error. 
When this shall have been done, the South will claim her own 
immortal names and her own immortal principles. 

But it is said upon the very highest authority that truth is 
established "in the mouth of two or three witnesses." Hence 
to the testimony of Julian we add that of others. We there- 
fore call Abraham Lincoln to the stand. Tn the ?Iouse of Con- 
gress in 1848, he said : "Any people anywhere have the right 
to rise up and throw oflf the existing government and establish 
one of their own." In 1861, he said : "I have no purpose, di- 
rectly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery 
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no right to 
do so" — plain words incapable of misconstruction. 

We now have from Lincoln's own lips the confession that 
the Constitution, the Supreme Law, did not confer on him the 
power to abolish slavery in the States. We have from a much 
higher authority, even the Supreme Court, that he did not have 
the authority to interfere with it in the Territories. We have 
on the unimpeachable authority of history that he did claim the 
right to interfere with it in the Territories. The question, there- 
fore, is this: Which is the greater authority, Lincoln or the 
Supreme Court? Whose decision does the Constitution, the one 
voice of all the States, recognize as supreme? 

We next introduce President Buchanan on the authority of 
James S. Wadsworth in "Recollections of President Lincoln and 
His Administration" (p. 33-L. E. Chittenden). In Mr. Wads- 
worth's own words in reference to an oflficial call made on the 
President by the Peace Conference, Feb. 7, 1861, we have: 

"It was very painful to see him (the President) throw his 
arms around the neck of one stranger after another, and with 
streaming eyes, beg of him to yield anything to save his coun- 
try from bloody fratricidal war. This appeared to be his favor- 
ite phrase. He used it many times. He had not one word of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 397 

condemnation for disunion, secession or treason. He appeared to 
look upon the South as a deeply injured part}-, to whicli the 
North owed apology and promise of better conduct in the fu- 
ture. It was natural that the South should resist assaults upon 
her domestic institutions, he said, and that she demand, if not 
indemnity, at least security for the future. That security the 
conference could give. By consenting to the amendments to 
the Constitution which the South demanded, because they were 
indispensable to satisfy the Southern people, the Conference 
could give peace to a distracted country, and save the LTnion." 

We next call to the stand "a great cloud of witnesses" that 
throng the great national highway, reaching from the adoption 
of the Constitution by the eleven States, all the way to the 4th 
of July, 18G1. Among these witnesses are all the Presidents, 
including Lincoln. With these stand such illustrious names as 
Jay and Hamilton and Marshall and a mighty host of other 
distinguished patriots and statesmen and jurists of the truly great 
of all the professions. All these are unanimous in one verdict: 
That no President had the right to interfere with the institu- 
tion of slavery in the States. Of all the Presidents, Lincoln 
stands "solitary and alone" in asserting the right to interfere 
with this institution in the Territories, the common property of 
all the States alike, in the same sense, on equal terms with 
equal privileges and equal rights : and almost alone among the 
truly great and illustrious of his day. 

We now call to the front still another most important wit- 
ness. It is no less than "The Opening of the Twentieth Cen- 
tury." Today, if the enlightened sentiment of the North and 
the world should be expressed in exact words it would read 
somewhat like this: "The war was inaugurated by the North 
on an unconstitutional basis, fought on an unconstitutional basis, 
and defended on an unconstitutional basis. In "The American 
Crisis Biographies (Wm. H. Seward by Edmund Everett Hale, 
Jr.) are these significant words: "The Civil War will not be 
treated as a rebellion, but as the great event in the history of 
our nation, which, after forty years, it is clearly recognized to 
have been." If the beginning of this century thus exempts and 
honors the South what great encomium will not its close bestow." 



398 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

We have now established beyond contradiction, by high and 
reHable Northern testimony, that "Lincohi doubted his right to 
emancipate under the war power;" that in expressing his opin- 
ion on this subject, he often used the homely illustration, that 
"calling the calfs tail a fifth leg did not make it a leg;" that 
notwithstanding this clearly expressed opinion of Mr. Lincoln, 
"he finally yielded to pressure, and in doing so became the liber- 
ator of the slaves." We have also shown from the same author- 
ity that "nothing short of a Constitutional amendment" could ac- 
tually free "our black millions;" and that all this is now attest- 
ed by the very high authorities on international and Constitu- 
tional law. We have also shown from the same source that 
the Northern masses were induced to wage war against the 
South under a "delusion" of Northern origin, a most effective 
weapon of aggression in the hands of skillful agitators. We 
have also established by a "great cloud of witnesses" that no 
President had the right under the Constitution to interfere with 
the institution of slavery in a State; and that the dawn of the 
20th century exonerates the South from blame. 

How was this impregnable testimony evaded? The basis of 
the evasion was laid before the war, when the idea to create in 
the Northern mind a "delusion" was first conceived ; during the 
eight or nine year (from 1852 to 1861) in which Uncle Tom's 
Cabin played its false, but most effective part in establishing 
that fatal delusion ; then men like Lincoln tragically exclaimed, 
"This country cannot exist half slave and half free;" and men 
like Wm. H. Seward cried that "nothing less than universal 
emancipation will suffice." 

Now that this "splendid popular delusion" had been fixed in 
the Northern mind, and Lincoln had been elected on the strength 
of it, progress was to be made toward "universal emancipation." 
As the Constitution was a mighty barrier in their way, its ap- 
proaches at first were gradual. The Administration felt its way 
as if on the edge of quicksand. The first cautious utterances 
were somewhat like this : "I have no purpose directly or indirect- 
ly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where 
it exists" — to the North most conciliatory, because it disturbed 
no domestic institution or no interest of theirs ; but to the Souta 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 399 

most alarming, because // did not include the Territories. It was 
construed to be the entering wedge that was to insure the threat 
of Mr. Seward, "we will invade your States." 

The next step was to raise the cry that "the Government was 
in a struggle for its existence." If the existence of the Gov- 
ernment had really been jeopardized they alone were responsi- 
ble for it by their now confessed aggressions on the Constitution. 
and they alone had the power to remove all cause of danger by 
a return to the true construction of that instrument as rendered 
from 1789 to the 4th of March, 1861. But disclaiming any vio- 
lation of the Constitution, and all responsibility for "the miser- 
able conditions" then existing, they represented to the people of 
the North and to the world that the existence of the Governmnt 
was in imminent peril, and just as when a person whose life 
had been threatened had the right to take the life of his assail- 
ant in self-defense, so the Government in self-defense had the 
right to plunder the seceding States, destroy their property and 
murder and exterminate their citizens. Thus the very creators 
of the conditions made these same conditions the ground on 
which to wage a most bitter and most relentless war. 

Within a few months, after the President had said : "I have 
no lawful right to do so" (interfere with slavery in the States) 
Congress began to legislate to abolish slavery in the States. 
Did Lincoln veto this act of Congress? On the contrary, he 
approved it. Had the Constitution been amended since he had 
said: "I have no right to do so?" No, not a word, not a syl- 
lable, not a letter, had been changed in that instrument. Yet 
Congress declared by a majority vote that "Congress had the 
right to abolish slavery in the States," and Lincoln approved 
the act. In addressing his "dissatisfied countrymen" in his in- 
augural, he said substantially, "I have an oath registered in 
Heaven. You have none." May it not be one thing to regis- 
ter an oath in Heaven and quite another thing to have Heaven 
approve of that oath? 

Did merciful Heaven forgive the violation of that sacred oath 
registered in the Court of the Sinless on the plea of Necessity? 
If Heaven decided the question of "Necessity," we have no rec- 
ord of the fact. But we have ample evidence that Mr. Lincoln 



400 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and his Cabinet, and Con.s^ress did decide it. Therefore, in its 
last analysis this "Necessity" was no necessity at all, but sim- 
ply an unauthorized act of Congress and the Administration — 
no more, no less. 

The plea on which this necessity was based is in these words : 
"Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time 
past and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstruct- 
ed. . . by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the 
ordinary judicial proceedings, etc. 

Jefferson Davis, in commenting on this plea, justly and sig- 
nificantly remarks: "A new power is this day found under the 
Constitution of the United States. This means that certain cir- 
cumstances had transpired in a distant portion of the Union, 
and the power of the Constitution had thereby become enlarged. 
The inference follows with equal reason that when the circum- 
stances cease to exist, the powers of the Constitution will be 
contracted again to their normal state ! that is, the powers of 
the Constitution of the United States are enlarged or contract- 
ed according to circumstances. Mankind cannot be surprised at 
seeing a government administered on such an interpretation of 
powers blimder into a civil war, and approach the throes of dis- 
solution." 

If the Constitution had made express provision for cases of 
absolute necessity, and Mr. Lincoln had complied with those pro- 
visions, doubtless the verdict of history would have acquitted 
him. But as it is, the enlightened judgment of mankind will for- 
ever condemn him as the deliberate violator of his sacred oath. 
The same great tribunal will forever condemn the 37th Con- 
gress as "the Congress of usurpation" for its unconstitutional 
acts, among which are the following: 

"Universal emancipation in the Confederate States through 
confiscation of private property of all kinds ; prohibition of the 
extension of slavery in the Territories ; emancipation of slavery 
in all places under the control of the Government of the United 
States ; emancipation with compensation in the border States, 
and in the District of Columbia ; practical emancipation to fol- 
low the progress of the armies ; all restraints to be removed 
from the slaves, so that they could go free wherever they pleased. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 401 

and be fed and clothed at the expense of the United States, lit- 
erally to become 'wards of the Government.* " 

The Constitution of the United States has no article, no sec- 
tion, no clause, no word, conferring a grant of power on the 
Government of the United States to make war upon the States 
of the Union ; and therefore it provides no rules concerning cap- 
tures on land and sea ! no rules whatever concerning the conduct 
of such a war. Its silence on this subject is the strongest pos- 
sible denial of the right of the Government to declare war on 
one or more of the States of the Union. No fact in history 
is more evident. 

If Lincoln and his Cabinet and Congress had recognized this 
fact, and had acknowledged the independence of the Confederacy 
and had then waged war on these States as a distinct and inde- 
pendent Government, they would then have been consistent ; they 
would then have been provided with a code of laws for the con- 
duct of their war on these States. Their justification would have 
been found in Art. 1, Sec. 8, of the Constitution which reads as 
follows : 

"The Congress shall have power to declare war, grant let- 
ters of marque and reprisal and make rules concerning captures 
on land and water ; to raise and support armies ; to provide and 
maintain a navy ; to make rules for the government and regula- 
tion of land and naval forces," etc. 

Thus the Constitution grants to the Government the right to 
make war upon foreign nations. ' In such cases usage determines 
the laws of war. Mr. Wheaton, the great American publicist, 
is high authority on laws governing modern warfare. In his 
"Elements of International Law" are these words: 

"By the modern usages of nations, which have now acquired 
the force of law, temples of religion, public edifices, devoted 
to civil purposes only, monuments of art and respositories of 
science are exempt from the general operations of war. Pri- 
vate property on land is also exempt from confiscation with the 
exception of such as may become booty in special cases, when 
taken from the enemy in the field, or in beseiged towns, and of 
military contributions levied upon the inhabitants of the hostile 
territory. This exemption extends even to the case of an abso- 



402 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

lute and unqualified conquest of the enemy's country." (page 
241). 

On the 22d of August, 1815, John Quincy Adams wrote to the 
Secretary of State: "Our duty is the restoration of all the prop- 
erty, including the slaves, which by the usages of war among 
civilized nations, ought not to have been taken. All private 
property on shore was of that description. It was entitled by 
the laws of war to exemption from capture." 

On the 28th of July, 1850. William T.. Macy, Secretary of 
State, wrote to the Count de Startiges : "Tt is a generally receiv- 
ed rule of modern warfare, so far at least as operations upon 
land are concerned, that the persons and effects of non-combat- 
ants are to be respected. The wanton pillage or uncompensated 
appropriation of individual property by an army even in the pos- 
session of an enemy's country, is against the usage of modern 
times." 

The late Chief Justice Marshall (United States vs. Perche- 
man, 7 Peters 50,) says: "It may not be unworthy of remark 
that it is very unusual, even in cases of conquest, for the con- 
queror to do more than displace the sovereign and assume do- 
minion over the country. The modern usage of nations, which 
has become law, would be violated ; that the sense of justice and 
of right which is acknowledged and felt by the whole civilized 
world would be outraged if private property should be gener- 
ally confiscated and private rights annulled." 

Let us now compare these declarations of Wheaton, the pub- 
licist ; of President John Quincy Adams ; of Wm. L. Macy, Sec- 
retary of State ; and of that most illustrious and greatest of 
American jurists, Marshall, to the policy of President Lincoln 
in the "War between the States." Let us note how Sherman in 
his famous "March to the Sea' laid waste a belt of country 
from thirty to forty miles wide and boasted of the thorough- 
ness of his work. This is but a sample of the widespread de- 
struction and confiscation of private property contrary to the 
usages of modern warfare. More than that, Lincoln yielded to 
the "pressure" of intense partisans, contrary to the Constitu- 
tion, wantonly annulled private rights, created the "miserable con- 
ditions" of which he complained, and then made these conditions 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 403 

an excuse for waging war upon the South, whose only sin was 
her protest against the violation of the Constitution. The South 
had never violated the Constitution. All through the turbulent 
h'story of tho Republic of Republics, her onlv deman-l was 
com|'!"ance with the Constitution. Calhoun in tne United States 
Senate cnphasixed this one dem;^nd of the South when he said: 
"V,'c want no con-jpromise but the Constitution, and we ought 
not to be satisfied with less.' Robert Toombs in the same Sen- 
ate declared substaritially, "Give us the Constitution a.--, con- 
strued by the Courts, and all questions between us will settle 
themselves." Search the record, and you will find that these 
distinguished sons of the South did but voice the unanimous sen- 
timents of their much abused section. The most deligent search 
of the last half century has been able to find nothing to the con- 
trary. No reputable historian will deny this fact. Does fidel- 
ity to the great fundamental law make "traitors" and "rebels" 
and "conspirators?" No, it is the confessed violators of this 
fundamental law that are guilty of "treason" and "conspiracy" 
and "rebellion." And who were the confessed violators' They 
were no less than Lincoln and his Cabinet. Therefore, the 
wrongs of the Sixties, distinguished as far the bloodiest page 
in all American history, cannot be charged to the South." 

Nor was Congress more true to the usages of modern war- 
fare than were Lincoln and his Cabinet. On the 6th of March, 
1861, the Congress enacted, that "property of every kind be- 
longing to persons residing in the Confederate States, who were 
engaged in hostilities against the United States, or who were 
aiding or abetting those engaged, should be confiscated, allow- 
ing exemption of private property, and the proceedings in court 
shall be for the benefit of the United States and the informer 
equally." This included slaves and all kinds of private prop- 
erty in known violation of the laws of all civilized nations. The 
verdict of the last half century is a denunciation of this act 
of Congress as uncivilized, inviting the utmost indignity and 
mjustice by the division of the spoils between "the United States 
and the informer equally;" violation of the usages of modern 
warfare is unjust and unconstitutional. On the other hand it 
is a complete acquittal of the South and insures her vindica- 



404 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tion for all time. The defeat of the South was but temporary. 
Justice often seems, but never is defeated. The South is now 
a new star in the political firmament. Each year it rises higher. 
Each year it grows in brilliancy. In less than another half cen- 
tury it will glow like the sun undimmed by cloud of vitupera- 
tion or even suspicion. 

The quotations just cited are sufficient to show that all the 
principles of the law of nations were violated in the name of 
the Constitution, and yet without the shadow of authority under 
that instrument. If it be objected that this is an indictment of 
a name loved, revered and honored as few names are, it is re- 
plied that it is the indictment of facts, and the testimony of 
facts is impartial. It knows no distinction. It condemns, and 
it honors, with equal justice the high and the low. It crowns 
the head of immortal justice. 

The actors of that day are rapidly passing the border line 
between this world and the next. Among them is the writer. 
Another decade, and few indeed will be the survivors on either 
side of the great struggle to stand guard over the passions and 
the issues of the immortal Sixties. When all these shall have 
passed that narrow line between time and eternity, disinterested 
and impassioned eyes will review the record. Like the dying 
boy on the battlefield of Manassas, they will ask "What was 
all this for?" The question will then be decided whether Fran- 
cis Newton Thorpe is right when he says "a hundred men of 
the South inaugurated the war," or whether Lincoln and his Cab- 
inet of seven inaugurated it. 

In discussing the Confiscation Act of August 6th, 1861, "it 
was estimated on the floor of the House of Representatives that 
the aggregate amount of property within the limits of the South- 
ern Confederacy subject to be acted upon by the provisions of 
this act would affect upward of six millions of people, and would 
deprive them of property of the value of nearly five thousand 
million dollars." How ruthless and relentless the hand that 
penned that act, the Congress that passed it, and the official 
that endorsed it ! 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 405 

This Confiscation Act was itself intendefl as a long step to- 
ward universal emancipation. Immediately after approving the 
bill, Mr, Lincoln sent a message to Congress in which are these 
words : 

"It is startling to say that Congress can free a slave within 
a State, and yet, if it were said the ownership of the slave had 
first been transferred to the Nation and Congress had then 
liberated him, the difficulty would then vanish. And this is the 
real case. The traitor against the general Government forfeits 
his slave at least as justly as he does any other property; and 
he forfeits both to the Government against which he offends. 
The Government, so far as there can be ownership, thus owns 
the forfeited slaves, and the question for Congress is 'Shall they 
be made free or sold to new masters?' " 

Had Lincoln actually forgotten his sacred obligtaions to obey 
the Constitution under that oath he had "registered in Heaven?" 
Or was he in reality ignorant of both the Constitution and the 
laws of nations? Have we not shown in this very chapter by 
John Quincy Adams and other most eminent and most reliable 
authorities that under the usages of civilized nations private 
property, including slaves, is not subject to confiscation? Was he 
ignorant of this fact? Did he not know that "the trial of all 
crimes, except in the case of impeachment, shall be by jury?" 
Was he also ignorant of the fact that "such trial shall be held 
in the State where the said crime shall have been committed?" 
(Art. 3, Sec. 2, Constitution.) 

There is but one fact in all that most remarkable statement 
to Congress, and that one fact is the opening sentence: "It is 
startling to say that Congress can free a slave within a State." 
Through all coming time the enlightened judgment of mankind 
will be : "It is also startling to say that a President of the United 
States could send such a message to an intelligent Congress 
and have them accept it as sound logic and sound law." 

Let us assume that the seceding States had actually commit- 
ted treason, and we will then ask, was Lincoln so ignorant of 
the Constitution as not to know that "no attainder shall work 
corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the 
person attainted?" (Art. 3, Sec. 3, Constitution.) Neither the 



406 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Confiscation Act, nor Lincoln's message provided for the proof 
of the crime, or the trial by jury, or forefiture for life time. 

Shall the enlightened judgment of mankind be, that the most 
terrible war of modern times was the result of ignorance? If 
it was not due to ignorance, there is no other alternative but 
to attribute it to an intelligent depravity of heart and mind. 
In very mercy let us attribute it to ignorance. 

No man was more the master of the art of deception than Lin- 
coln. Observe with what characteristic skill he introduced this 
subject: "It is startling to say Congress can free a slave within 
a State." This "startling" proposition was immediately follow- 
ed by an "And-yet-if" proposition, which is conditional. The 
next pen-stroke obliterates the condition ; and then is made the 
positive assertion that Congress can "free slaves within a State." 
Lincoln was remarkable for such sophistry as this, effective for 
the time, but, like all other fog, it vanished at the rising of 

the sun. 

This whole question was treated on an unconstitutional basis. 
Mr. Lothrop in his Wm. H. Seward, p. 38, reports Seward 
as saying: "Wherein do the strength and security of slavery 
lie? You answer that they He in the Constitution of the United 
States and the Constitution and laws of all slave-holding States. 
Not at all. They lie in the erroneous sentiment of the Ameri- 
can people." Again we ask how can men swear to abide by 
the Constitution, and yet subject it to what they were pleased 
to call "an erroneous sentiment?" Are we driven to the inevi- 
table conclusion that the high sense of honor which distinguish- 
ed all the other administrations was wanting in this? 

A Few Other Facts Systematically Stated 

may be in order just here. Up to the 6th of March all the un- 
constitutional approaches to emancipation, as we have seen, were 
indirect, insidious, and gradual. On this very day Lincoln sent 
to Congress a message recommending the adoption of a resolu- 
tion providing for the gradual emancipation of slavery. Thus 
began the direct unconstitutional interference with slavery. When 
asked by the Congress for the Constitutional authority for this 
act he pointed to these words in the preamble: "To provide for 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 407 

the general welfare." ("Hard pressed," you say?) Compare 
this message with all its previous declarations, viz, : That he 
did not contemplate any interference with slavery within the 
States. 

On the 2oth of April, 1862, Gen. Hunter issued an order 
declaring Georgia, South Carolina and Florida under martial 
law. Two weeks later Gen. Hunter boldly declared "the persons 
held as slaves in those States to be forever free." 

This second order of Hunter wes declared by Mr. Lincoln to 
be void, saying, "Whether at any time or in any case it shall 
have become a necessity dispensable to the maintenance of the 
Government to examine such supposed power, or questions which, 
under my responsibility, I reserve to myself." Note the words, 
"Such supposed power." They mean progress along unconsti- 
tutional lines. 

On the 12th of July, 1862, Representatives of the Border 
States at his own request met Lincoln in conference. To them 
he said: "In repudiating its (Hunter's order), I gave dissatis- 
faction, if not offense, to many whose support the country can- 
not afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure 
in this direction is still upon me and is increasing." (So were 
the chances of the Emancipation and proclamation increasing). 
This pressure came from his extreme partisans. It was "a de- 
mand for immediate and universal emancipation of the slaves." 

This demand was natural, Lincoln had declared before his 
election, "This country could not exist half slave, and half 
free." Seward had declared from many platforms that the object 
of the Republican Party was "universal emancipation." Hun- 
dreds of other speakers had declared the same. Hence the pres- 
sure, afterwards termed necessity ! This, too, was what the 
South had predicted would be the result, and was assigned by 
the seceding States as one of the causes of their withdrawal from 
the Union. Evidently the South was not wrong in her pre- 
diction. 

The President, with his usual tact, on this 12th day of July, 
1S62, thus addressed the Representatives of the border slave- 
holding States: 



408 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"I intend no reproach or complaint when I assure you that, 
in my opinion, if you all had voted for the resolution in the 
gradual emancipation message of last March, the war would now 
be substantially ended. And the plan therein proposed is yet 
one of the most potent and swift means of ending it. , . 

"How much better for you as seller and the nation as buyer 
to sell out and buy out that without which the war could never 
have been, than to sink both the thing to be sold and the price 
of it in cutting one another's throats!" Give special attention 
to the words, "without which the war could never have been." 
They mean, if anything, that with no slavery in the South there 
would have been no aggressions on the part of the North ; and 
with no aggressions on the part of the North there could never 
have been war. Thus deception often contradicts itself, and ex- 
poses to light its false motives, its false position. 

The border State representatives, to whom Lincoln thus spoke, 
were no less than Senators and Representatives of the border 
States in the Congress. Twenty of these were present. After 
considering the subject, the majority replied : 

"The right to hold slaves is a right appertaining to all the 
States of the Union. They have the right to cherish or abolish 
the institution, as their States or their interests may prompt, 
and no one is authorized to question the right, or limit its en- 
joyment. And no one has more clearly affirmed that right than 
you have. Your inaugural address does you great honor in 
this respect, and inspired the country with confidence in your 
fairness and respect for law.' 

After referring to the fact that many of their people were in 
the armies of the Confederacy because they believed the Admin- 
istration was hostile to their rights, they added : 

"Remove their apprehensions ; satisfy them that no harm is in- 
tended to them and their institutions; that this Government is 
not making war on their rights of property, but is simply de- 
fending its legitimate authority, and they will gladly return to 
their allegiance." 

Note the words spoken to Lincoln's face: "No one has more 
clearly affirmed that right than you have." Will Lincoln stand 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 409 

by his own affirmations? Watch the approaches to emancipa- 
tion and see. 

Note the other words: ''Remove their apprehensions; satisfy 
them that no harm is intended to them and their institutions ; 
that this Government is not making war on their rights of propn 
erty. . . and they will gladly return to their allegiance." These 
are significant words. They would have applied to the entire 
South before the war began. 

Was this earnest appeal effective? No. Why not? That 
mighty "pressure" was increased. The anti-slavery press had 
sprung into the arena, and were remniding him of his pre- 
election pledges. He didn't have the backbone of a Washing- 
ton, a Hickory Jackson, or a Grover Cleveland. They charged 
him in the name of "twenty millions of people that a great pro- 
portion of those who triumphed in his election were sorely dis- 
appointed and deeply pained by the policy he seemed to be pur- 
suing with regard to the slaves of the rebels. 

"Horace Greeley printed a signed editorial in his paper with the 
modest title of 'The Prayer of 30,000,000,' giving harsh ex- 
pressions to the abolitionists' point of view." (Hapgood in 
"Abraham Lincoln, the Man of the People." p. 273.) 

These papers further declared, "We consider that the Union 
cause has suffered, and is now suffering, immensely from mis- 
taken deference to rebel slavery. Had you, sir, in your inaugu- 
ral address, unmistakably given notices that in case the rebellion 
already commenced was persisted in, and your efforts to pre- 
serve the Union and enforce the laws should be resisted by 
armed force, you would recognize no loyal person as right- 
fully held in slavery by a traitor, we believe the rebellion there- 
in would have received a staggering, if not a fatal blow." 
"Pressure" and "Necessity" have now almost become identical. 

Lincoln's non-committal reply was with characteristic tact: 
"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they 
at the same time could save slavery, I do not agree with them. 
If there be those who would not save the Union unless they 
could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with 
them. . . If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves 
I would do it." Horace Greely said he "prepared it in ad- 



410 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

vance and merely took that opportunity to get his views before 
the public." "Sub rosa, I can't trust your 'honest old Abe' 
said the unsatisfied Greeley, 'he is too smart for me. He thinks 
me a d — d fool ; but I am never fooled twice by the same in- 
dividual." (Hapgood p. 274.) 

A call was now made for an additional 300,000 men. En- 
listments were slow. It seemed necessary to make threats of 
a draft, and at the same time offer most liberal bounties to 
induce enlistments. This reluctance of tlie people to volunteer 
was declared by the friends of emancipation to have been caused 
by the policy of the Government. These champions of emanci- 
pation proclaimed that by the adoption of this measure "the 
streets and by-ways would be crowded with volunteers to fight 
for the freedom of 'the loyal blacks;' and that thrice 300,000 
could be easily obtained." 

The word pressure now is spelled necessity. On the 13th of 
September, 1862, Mr. Lincoln had said to a delegation of "Chris- 
tians" from Chicago who had presented to him a memorial re- 
questing him to issue an emancipation proclamation, "I have 
not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but 
hold the matter under advisement." 

Nine days later, on the 22d of September, 18G2, "the prelimi- 
nary proclamation of emancipation" was issued by Mr. Lincoln. 
In it he declared that at the next session of Congress he would 
renew his recommendation for emancipation in the border slave- 
holding States; and that on January 1, 1863, he would recom- 
mend that — 

"All persons held as slaves within any State, or designated 
part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion 
against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and for- 
ever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, 
including the military and naval authority thereof, will recog- 
nize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do 
no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any 
efforts they may make for their actual freedom." 

On the 1st day of January, 1863, another proclamation was 
issued by Mr. Lincoln, bending his knee to Pressure-Necessity. 
It was the now famous "Emancipation Proclamation." When 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 411 

read before his Cabinet it was discovered that the name of God 
had not been mentioned in it. He was reminded that such an 
important document should in some way recognize the name 
of Deity. Lincohi declared he had overlooked this fact, and 
called on his Cabinet to assist him in the preparation of a para- 
graph recognizing God. 

At the next Cabinet meeting Mr. Chase presented the re- 
quired paragraph in these words: "And upon this act, sincerely 
believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitu- 
tion upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment 
of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." It was 
accepted by Mr. Lincoln without the crossing of a "t" or the 
dotting of an "i." 

Note the words: "Warranted by the Constitution upon mili- 
tary necessity." This is either true or false. It was univer- 
sally con\:eded at the time that all warrants by the Constitution 
were in "express terms." But the Constitution in express terms 
warranted nothing upon the plea of "military," or any other 
kind of "necessity." Therefore the assertion that the proclama- 
tion was warranted by the Constitution upon militarv necessity 
was false. The "considerate judgment" of a large portion of 
mankind may have been given to the document, because deceiv- 
ed by its pious speech, but it is certain that God was not de- 
ceived by it, and his gracious favor may have been withheld 
from the document, but bestowed upon the innocent millions of 
both sections. 

But was there in reality at that time a "military necessity ?" 
If not there was a misstatement of fact. It is estimated that 
the white male population of the Northern States then was 13 - 
690,3()4, while that of the Confederacy was 5,449,463. The num- 
ber of troops then under the flag of the United States exceeded 
one million, while the number under the flag of the Confed- 
racy was less than 400,000. The navy of the United States at 
that time was third in rank among the nations of the world 
while that of the Confederacy consisted of one small ship. The 
commerce of the United States floated upon every ocean and ev- 
ery sea, and to it all the ports of the world were open, while 
to the commerce of the Confederacy every port in all the world 



412 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

was closed. In manufactures of all kinds the people of the 
United States were the rivals of those of the world's greatest 
nations, while the manufacturers of the Confederate States were 
very few indeed and very inferior. The treasury of the United 
States was possessed of the resources and the accumulations of 
four-fifths of a most prosperous century, while that of the Con- 
federacy had to be developed by its own financial resources in 
the midst of a strenuous war. The ambassadors of the United 
States and their representatives were received with open arms in 
all the courts of the world, while not one court of the world 
recognized the representatives of the Confederate States. 

In the fact of this telling record men may have been deceived — 
men were deceived, but was God, whose gracious favor was 
invoked upon that deception? 

Contrast "I believe I have no right to do so," with these words 
of the proclamation: "Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, Pres- 
ident of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested 
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the L'nited 

States." 

Contrast the amendment to the Constitution, made ( ?) by tliis 
proclamation under the plea of "Necessity," with Art. 5 of the 
Constitution, which reads as follows: "The Congress, whenever 
two-thirds of both H;ouses shall deem it necessary, shall propose 
amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the 
Legislatures of two-thrids of the States, shall call a Convention 
for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to 
all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when rat- 
ified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, 
or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the 
other mode of ratification, may be proposed by the Congress, pro- 
vided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 
one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect 
the first and fourth clauses in the Ninth Section of the first 
Article ; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived 
of its equal suffrage in the Senate." These are the words of 
Art. 5, Constitution of the United States, without the omission 
of a word or a syllable or a letter. It will be observed that 
the greatest possible safeguards are thrown around amendni'^nts. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 413 

Contrast these concluding words of the Emancipation-Procla- 
mation-Constitiition with these other words of the genuine docu- 
ment. Sec. 2, Art. 2 : "The President shall be Commander-in-Chief 
of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of 
the several States when called into active service of the United 
States ; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principle 
officers in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject, 
relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall 
have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against 
the United States, except in cases of impeachments." With- 
out the omission of one word, one syllable or one letter, we have 
here every power conferred by the Constitution upon the Pres- 
ident as Commander-in-Chief of the Acmy and Navy of the 
United States. We search in vain for "the power in me vested" 
to emancipate slaves in all the States or in the Territories. This 
section verifies the truth of his inaugural assertion, "I have no 
right to do so." And the words, "I have no right to do so," is 
exclusive of all right whatever — even the right claimed "by vir- 
tue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual rebel- 
lion against the authority and Government of the United States, 
and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said re- 
bellion." How self-contradictory! How Constitutionally con- 
tradictory ! Withal, how unconstitutional for an Executive who 
took the following oath : "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that 
I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United 
States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and de- 
fend the Constitution of the United States." Is the Constitu- 
tion of the United States of such a peculiar nature that it is 
"preserved, protected and defended" by its most evident viola- 
tion? If violation of the Constitution is not revolution, what 
is it? 



CHAPTER XXX. 

OTHER FACTS CONNECTED WITH 
EMANCIPATION. 

Too much light cannot be thrown on the history of the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation. That it was without Constitutional, or 
legal authority, cannot be denied. Clearly, therefore, it was a 
usurpation of authority. Yet all the honors bestowed upon Lin- 
coln as Chief Magistrate of the United States center in this 
proclamation. It was Lincoln's pet. All his hopes of a cherish- 
ed immortality gathered about it. He said to Sumner, "I know 
very well that the name which is connected with this act will 
never be forgotten." (Tarbel, Vol. 1, page 98). We have 
already referred to the fact that it was so regarded by his Cab- 
inet. Sumner himself called it "our best weapon ;" while its 
supporters, in general, regarded it as "an attack on the enemy's 
rear." 

It was an amazing violation of the Constitution because of its 
stupendous results. It was this astonishing feature that so com- 
pletely captivated the mind of Lincoln. To him the great dis- 
tinction and honor of having struck the shackles from the limbs 
of nearly 4,000,000 slaves, would more than counterbalance the 
sin of having violated the Constitution. To him it was a greater 
issue than the Constitution itself; greater than all the wrongs 
that the violation of his oath brought to the South and the 
country at large. At first the violation of the Constitution trou- 
bled him, for Wells, in his diary, says, "He had been prompt 
and emphatic in denouncing any interference by the Government 
with the institution." But finally "the dark days" came, when 
victory rested on the Confederate arms, when "compulsory ser- 
vice" was the imperative resort, when the States, lacking in in- 
terest, attempted to avoid their quota of soldiers, and when par- 
tisanship was charged against the Administration (Hapgood p. 
293). These were arguments within themselves both potent and 
urgent. When coupled with that of the deep and abiding con- 
viction, "that the name which is connected with this act will 
never be forgotten," it became an argument irresistable in force. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 415 

It triumphed over all compunction of conscience as to its legality. 
Having once resolved to "cross the Rubicon" by abandoning 
the Constitution, Lincoln immediately set about preparing the 
public mind for its favorable reception. No emergency was ever 
too great for his acuteness — his ingenuity. Carl Schurz, Minis- 
ter to Spain, had written him it was absolutely necessary to 
"satisfy Europe and that speedily, that the war was to end in 
the destruction of slavery;" otherwise, "there was great danger 
of the Southern Confederacy's being recognized by France and 
England." This was an additional argument for emancipation. 
Lincoln immeaiately wrote Carl Schurz to come at once to 
this country. He promptly obeyed, arriving in January, 1862. 
"The President gave undivided attention to his argument, and 
was inclined to accept his view, but 'was not sure the public 
sentiment of the country was ripe for such a policy. It had to 
be educated up to it. Would not Mr. Schurz go to New York 
and talk the matter over with their friends, some of whom he 
named?" 

A few days later Mr. Schurz reported to Mr. Lincoln "that 
the organization of an Emancipation Society for the purpose 
of agitating the idea had been started in New York, and that 
a public meeting would be held at the Cooper Institute on the 
6th of March." 

Mr. Lincoln replied : "That's it : that is the very thing. You 
must make a speech at the meeting. Go home and prepare it. 
When you have got it outlined bring it to me, and I will see 
what you are going to say." 

In a few days Mr. Schurz submitted to Mr. Lincoln the skele- 
ton of his argument on "Emancipation as a Peace Measure." 
After reading it the President declared : "That is the right thing, 
and remember you may hear from me on the same day." 

"On the 6th of March, the speech was delivered, as had been 
arranged, before an audience which packed Cooper Union." Just 
as Mr. Schurz took his seat he was handed a copy of the Pres- 
ident's "message given that afternoon to Congress. Mr. Schurz 
at once read it to the audience, which, already thoroughly arous- 
ed, now broke out again into a tremendous burst of applause." 
(Tarbel p. 100). 



416 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

This very adroit plot to "agitate," deceive, inflame and edu- 
cate the minds of the people finds its equal only in the plot to 
compel the Confederates to fire on Fort Sumter. Friendly 
newspapers were in the plot. They were there to tell of "the 
repeated cheers," and "the applause that shook the hall." A 
specimen of their exaggeration may be seen in the comment of 
"Harper's Weekly:' "The cannon shot against Fort Sumter, ef- 
faced three-fourths of our political lines; the President's mes- 
sage has wiped out the other fourth." Both were the result of 
plotting — of intrigue. 

Thus the masses were tricked — "educated up to it." They 
were not instructed in the Constitution, in the fundamental prin- 
ciples of Government, the only safe political education. They 
were beguiled into the adoption of Lincoln's policy. The very 
plot, having for its object the deceiving, exciting and inflaming 
minds of the people, declares an avowed acknowledgement on the 
part of Lincoln and Schurz and the newspapers, that the eman- 
cipation proclamation was unconstitutional. For shrewd cunning, 
if Fort Sumter does not furnish a parallel, where in all political 
history can it be found ? And this is the logic — the logic of de- 
ception — that bestows upon the South the appellation of rebels! 

To show that "Harper's Weekly" did not speak the truth, but 
simply indulged in exaggeration, is not difficult. Hear what one 
of Lincoln's own historians says: "But to Mr. Lincoln's keen 
disappointment the Border States representatives in Congress let 
the proposition pass in silence. He saw one after another of 
them, but not a word did they say of the message. The Pres- 
ident stood this for four days, then he summoned them to the 
White House to explain his position. 

To them he said, "The wrong of slavery was not the ques- 
tion they had to deal with. Slavery existed, and that, too, as 
well by the act of the North as of the South; in any scheme 
to get rid of it the North as well as the South was bound to 
do its full and equal share. He thought the institution wrong, 
and ought never to have existed, yet he recognized the rights 
of property which had grown out of it, and would respect those 
rights as fully as similar rights in any other property ; that 
property (in slaves) can exist and does legally exist. He thought 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 417 

such a law wrong, but the rights of property resulting must be 
respected; he would get rid of the law, not by violating it, but 
by encouraging the proposition, and offering inducements to 
give it up." 

These representatives rejected his proposition. Perhaps they 
compared these soft expressions, kindred creations of the Cooper 
Institute plot, with the oft-repeated assertion of Lincoln that 
there could be "no property in slaves." Doubtless, too, they could 
not reconcile the assertion, "slavery existed and that, too, as 
well by the act of the North as by the South," with the stern 
and terrible realization that the North was then waging war 
on the South, because, for reasons beyond her control, the in- 
stitution still existed in the South. Then, too, they must have 
realized that their fellow citizens, thousands of them, were then 
fighting in the Union Army because assured that slavery was 
not to be interfered with. They also realized that the sole pur- 
pose of the war was to free the slaves and that they, as a part 
of the South, were "bound to do" their "full and equal share of 
the work." They realized, too, that their State Governments 
were completely in the hands of the military authorities of the 
United States Government by reason of intrigue and deception. 
They well knew also that all they could now do was to say, 
"We will consider it," and then fold their hands in silent sub- 
mission. > >•«) 
These Border State representatives were not all by any means 
who contradicted the exaggerated fiction of "Harper's Weekly." 
A most prominent citizen of Ohio, a man high in the councils 
of the Nation, Vanlandingham, was a prominent example of 
those who believed the Constitution was best preserved by com- 
plying with its terijis. He so expressed himself in a number 
of speeches. He was arrested by Gen. Burnside, whose head- 
quarters were in Cincinnati ; was tried and convicted by a mili- 
tary tribunal. Gen. Burnside approved the finding, and threw 
him into prison. All efforts to be released on habeas corpus 
failed. "There was an immense outcry all over the North. 
Governor Seymour of New York denounced the arrest as dis- 
honorable despotism. He said: 'The action of the Administra- 
tion will determine in the minds of more than one-half of the 



418 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

people of the loyal States whether the war is waged to put 
down rebellion in the South, or to destroy free institutions in the 
North." (Hapgood p. 308). 

Note that cry went up "all over the North." When the out- 
cry became so loud and extensive, when Seymour denounced it 
in the name of the great State of New York, Hapgood says : 
^'The President met the complaints by commuting the sentence 
in an original and adroit manner. He sent him to the South, 
and on May 25th he was accepted by a Confederate picket. 

"Still the noise continued, and June 11th (just two weeks) 
the Ohio Democrats nominated Vanlandingham for Governor. 

"To some of the resolutions denouncing the arrest the Pres- 
ident thought it well to reply. . . A few sentences may give 
some idea of its false premises and hence false logic : 

"I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am consider- 
ing to be in favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force 
by armies. Long experience shows that armies cannot be main- 
tained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty 
of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitution 
sanction this punishment." (Hapgood pp. 308-309). 

That meeting did not understand that the South was in "re- 
bellion" at all. It claimed then what the close of the 19th 
century and the opening of the 20th century have asserted in 
ringing tones that will be heard all down the coming ages, that 
the South was not in rebellion, but was simply defending her 
constitutional rights. Hence all arguments based on Lincoln's 
opening sentence are false, since no fountain can rise higher 
than its source. If no "rebellion," of course there v^^as no use 
ior a military force to put it down. Besides Vanlandigham 
was no deserter. He was only exercising the right of a free 
-citizen in a free State. 

Vanlandigham said and did no more than Governor Seymour. 
But Vanlandigham was a private citizen, while Seymour was the 
official head of a great State. What was wrong in Vanlandig- 
ham was a multiplied wrong in Governor Seymour. The latter 
spoke as the representative of the State of New York ; the for- 
mer as a private citizen. If the right to arrest Vanlandigham 
existed, that right demanded with emphasis the arrest of Sey- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 419 

mour. Had not Seymour spoken, Vanlandigham doubtless would 
have remained in prison till the close of the war. If Lincoln had 
no legal right to hold Vanlandigham in prison, he had no such 
right to banish him from the country. One was as illegal as 
the other, and both were the exercise of "dishonorable despot- 
ism." .(Seymour.) 

Lincoln also said in his defense, "The case required and the 
law and the Constitution sanction this punishment." It is seen 
that he makes no other reference to the Constitution. There is 
no fact better established in all history than this: The Consti- 
tution does not provide for the general Government to coerce 
a state of the Union. In not providing for such coercions it 
denies the General Government the right to coerce a State. This 
being true there was no State in rebellion. Hence the war was 
a falsehood and rank revolution. 

The South issues this defiant challenge. She challenges the 
world, including the most profound expounders of the Con- 
stitution in all the North, for a single clause or clauses confer- 
ring on the United States Government the right to coerce a 
State. If that clause can be found, Lincoln had the right to 
declare war on the eleven seceding States. If it cannot be found, 
he had no such right. 

The South issues another challenge as follows: That no man 
can truthfully deny that the proposition was made in the Con- 
vention that framed the Constitution, to confer on the Govern- 
ment of the United States the right to coerce a State; and that 
it absolutely received no favor at all in that Convention. If thus 
voted down it was not conferred on the Government. On what 
ground then did Lincoln claim the right to coerce a State? 

The South has a question to ask right here : If the Convention 
that framed the Constitution had provided for the general Gov- 
ernment to coerce a State, how many of the thirteen original 
States would have adopted the Constitution when submitted to 
them for their ratification or rejection? Have we not shown 
from the record of their votes on the ratification of the Consti- 
stitution by the several States how jealous they were of their 
rights? Does not Charles Francis Adams say that at the time 
of ratifying the Constitution that nine out of every ten of the 



420 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

citizens of the Northern States, and ninety-nine out of every 
hundred of the citizens of the Southern States believed the States 
had a right to secede? Have we not also shown that this right 
was actually taught the cadets at West Point by the Govern- 
ment? In what, therefore, did the wrong of the South consist? 

After all, the results of the emancipation proclamation were 
somewhat disappointing to Lincoln. He was as ignorant of the 
relation between the master and slave in the South as it was 
possible for an enlightened Northerner to be. He anticipated 
"insurrections and massacres" of Southern families as a result. 
Instead there was not a massacre or insurrection reported. With 
few exceptions, the faithful slaves remained on the plantations, 
true to their sacred charge. We have already referred to this 
fidelity of the Southern blacks when brave men left their hearth- 
stones, treasures dearer than life, in charge of their black friends, 
and went to the front in defense of their inherited and Consti- 
tutional rights. This display of heart-felt affection and unwav- 
ering devotion to their trust by an enslaved race is without 
a parallel in the annals of time. It gives the lie in no unmean- 
ing terms to the false accusations of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the 
fictitious fountain of falsehood from which Lincoln and thou- 
sands upon thousands of others unsuspectingly and confidingly 
drank, both in the North and throughout all Europe. When Lin- 
coln met Mrs. Stowe he said, "And this is the little woman 
that caused the great war?" Charles Francis Adams says, in 
substance, "it was 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' that whipped the war." 

The proclamation had a favorable effect upon Europe. As 
we have shown, it did not disturb the Border States for these 
were in the military grip of the United States Government. 
They could neither move this way nor that. As to the North, 
Hapgood says, "Never on the other hand had lukewarmers, ap- 
proaching Southern sympathy, been so bad in the North. Lin- 
coln felt under the necessity of rendering it as useful as possi- 
ble. He urged the Generals commanding departments in the 
South to use their influence in causing the slaves to abandon 
the plantations. "On the 14th of January, he wrote to Major 
Gen. Dix, marked 'private and confidential :' 'The proclamation 
has been issued. We were not succeeding without it. Now 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 421 

that we have it, and bear all the disadvantages, we must take 
some benefit from it, if practicable. I, therefore, will thank you 
for your well considered option, whether Monroe and Yorktown, 
one or both, could not, in whole or in part, be garrisoned by 
colored troops, leaving the white forces now necessary at those 
places to be employed elsewhere?' 

"In March he wrote to Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of 
Tennessee, afterward Vice-President and President of the United 
States : 'I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro 
military force. In my opinion, the country now needs no speci- 
fic thing so much as some man of your ability and position to 
go to this work. . . The colored population is the great avail- 
able and yet unavailable force for restoring the Union. The 
bare sight of fifty thousand armed and drilled black soldiers 
upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at 
once." This ignorance displayed here, both of the Southern 
whites and Southern blacks, is superb. Through his emissaries 
he placed muskets in hands of two hundred thousand blacks, and 
to all these he was compelled to add not less than nine hundred 
thousand foreign whites and thousands upon thousands of whites 
from the North; and the end was not yet. No doubt Andrew 
Johnson, who knew the South and the negro, smiled when he 
read that "efifusive" letter. 

A few days later he wrote to Gen. Banks that it was "very 
important if not indispensable" to raise colored troops. 

Although the message was rejected by the Border States, it 
stimulated Congress to pass an act forbidding the army and navy 
to aid in the return of fugitive slaves. Doubtless many slaves, 
induced by fair promises to fly to the sheltering arms of the 
Government wished to return to their masters and comfort. This 
act made it unlawful for the army or the navy to assist them in 
their return. Congress also recognized the independence of Li- 
beria and Haiti, and completed a treaty with Great Britain to 
suppress the slave trade — a measure long approved by the South. 
The District of Columbia, being pro-slavery when the war broke 
out, Congress now also passed an act freeing all the slaves in 
the District, appropriating one million dollars to compensate 
loyal slave holders and one hundred thousand dollars to defray 



422 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the expenses of such negroes as might desire to emigrate to 
Liberia or Haiti. 

The influence of the proclamation on Lincoln was extreme. 
"Oh ! how I wish the Border States would accept my proposi- 
tion," he exclaimed to Arnold and Lovejoy one day, "then you, 
Lovejoy, and you, Arnold, and all of us, would not have lived 
in vain. The labor of your life, Lovejoy, would be crowned 
with success. You would live to see the end of slavery." It 
was this soul-possessing, this all-pervading passion for "the end 
of slavery," that distinguished Lincoln's life and finally found 
its culmination in war. To this passion he even subordinated 
fraticidal war. Standing upon the battlefield of Antietam before 
the earth had had time to drink in the blood of the slain, he was 
charged with levity. He could not help it. A passion stronger 
than his will controlled him. His vivid imagination contrasted 
terrible pictures of slavery with the brightest of all futures and 
himself as laurel-crowned in the midst of that future. 

"Could you have seen the President," wrote Sumner to a 
friend, "as I have seen him often while he was considering the 
greatest questions on which he has already acted — the invitation 
to emancipation in the States, emancipation in the District of 
Columbia, and the acknowledgement of independence of Haiti 
and Liberia, even your zeal would have been satisfied. 

"His whole soul was occupied, especially by the first proposi- 
tion (emancipation in the States) which was peculiarly his own. 
In familiar conversation with him I remember nothing more 
touching than the earnestness and completeness with which he 
embraced the idea. To his mind it was just and beneficient, 
while it promised the sure end of slavery." 

Soon after his election, and before his inauguration, in Inde- 
pendence Hall, Philadelphia, he said "that the great principle 
or idea which had kept the Union together so long was 'that 
which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted 
from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have equal 
chances. . . If this country cannot be saved without giving up 
that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated 
on this spot than surrender it.'" (Hapgood p. 181). 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 423 

The comment of the historian is: "The speeches" (he was 
speaking through the States) "seem to have been rather disap- 
pointing at the time, as the people longed for less cautious dec- 
larations." 

It was this all-consuming soul-passion that peculiarly fitted 
him, and him alone, for the terribly cruel mission for which des- 
tiny seems to have elevated him to power. Was Charles Fran- 
cis Adams, the scholar and historian of Massachusetts, right 
when he sa3-s, "It was foreordained — predestined?" It required 
just such a passion — a passion that was absolutely madness itself 
— to ride rough shod through the smoke of battle, and over 
the prostrate forms of suffering, bleeding, dying patriots to reach 
the goal of his ambition, "the end of slavery." How terrible 
must have been his picture of the horrors of slavery in the 
South ! What "legion of demons" must have inspired his imag- 
ination ! Whether to pity the more, or condemn the more, we 
know not. 

Lincoln's great trouble was, not simply this madness. He 
either did not see, or could not see, or would not see, his own 
responsibility, and that of his party for the conditions then ex- 
isting. His madly impassioned soul could see nothing but "our 
form of Government saved to the world, its beloved history and 
cherished memories vindicated, and its happy future fully assured 
and rendered inconceivably grand" — words of his own to the 
Border States representatives, to whom he added, "To you more, 
than any others the privilege is given to assure that happiness, 
and swell that grandeur and to link your names therewith for- 
ever." What mattered it to him that the Constitution furnish- 
ed a remedy ? That remedy was not fast enough. The surgery 
of the sword must take its place. 

When Lincoln was elevated to power this was the most pros- 
perous Government in the world. Its great charter of safety- 
was the Constitution. In vain the South clung to it as their 
only hope, saying, "Give us this and we shall be satisfied.'" 
He had it in his power to assure the South and calm her fears*. 
But he answered her pleas in terms the South understood to 
mean threats and war; and which the North construed as am- 
bigous, yea, in reality self-contradictory. A great number de- 



424 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

clared it was conciliatory, while equally as great a number de- 
clared it meant "war to the hilt." The ministers of the Gospel 
and the great masses believed slavery was the one issue, while 
Congress and the President were instant in denial. "A splendid 
popular delusion" prevailed among the Northern masses, while a 
more personal and more powerful delusion occupied the Presi- 
dent's chair. 

"Our form of Government" was not imperiled till the tall, 
shrewd, delusive form of Abraham Lincoln rose above the 
plains of Illinois. Till then, therefore, it needed not be "saved 
to the world." All "its beloved history," all "its cherished mem- 
ories," antedated his rise to power and delusion. Two years 
of "a brothers' war" had been draining the best blood of the 
veins of the Nation when he addressed these soft persuasive 
words just quoted, to the Border States Representatives. The 
bloody battle of Antietam had just been fought. That great 
battle and the many that had preceded it had not then furnished 
to the Government any "cherished memories," or "beloved his- 
tory" during Lincoln's two years' reign. Besides, every day 
was one of anticipated battle, every hour one of unrest, and ev- 
ery moment, one of agony. He seemed supremely ignorant of 
his responsibility for the conditions his policy had brought about. 
The highest boast of these awful conditions was the matchless 
display of heroism by the soldiers of the armies of the two 
sections on the field of struggle. 

In all this pathetic address to the Border States representa- 
tives, not a tear moistened his eyes, for the heroes wounded and 
suffering and dying in the strife; not a sigh or word of com- 
miseration escaped his lips for the homes draped in mourning 
in all the crowded East, in all the Sunny South, or in all the 
Wild West. The one great thought that now possessed his mind, 
that now crowded out all other thoughts, was "a happy future 
fully assured and rendered inconceivably grand." That picture 
was ever incomplete without himself conspicuously at the head 
•of the victorious procession. The intense imagination that paint- 
ed this splendid picture of future happiness and grandeur was 
colored by the all-absorbing "end of slavery." 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 425 

Time with him was too short to pause to consider whether 
this picture could have come without making our country a cem- 
etery in which to lay for their final sleep the blood stained forms 
of a million heroes. Were the lives of our heroes so cheap as 
not to deserve a more serious consideration? Was the Consti- 
tution of so little importance that its method of solution was 
considered unworthy of trial? Was there any absolute necessity 
for substituting the Chicago Platform for the Constitution of 
the States? The platform meant war, the Constitution meant 
peace. The platform meant the will of less than 39 per cent of 
the people ; in the Constitution the will of more than 65 per cent. 
The platform meant the rule of madness, the Constitution that of 
sanity. 

When the splendid picture of "future happiness and future 
grandeur" failed to captivate the Border States representatives, 
Lincoln did not despair. In all the earnestness of an indomitable 
passion he exclaimed, "/ must save this Go-vernment if possible. 
What I cannot do f will not do, but it may as zvell be under- 
stood once for all, that I shall not surrender this game, leaving 
an available card unplayed." The next day he explained to 
Seward and Wells what he meant by "available card." It was 
the emancipation proclamation, admitted by himself to be uncon- 
stitutional, and yet issued in the name of that instrument and 
by virtue of its authority. 

How President Davis viewed it may be seen from his message 
of January 1863 : 

"The public journals of the North have been received con- 
taining a proclamation dated on the first day of the present 
month, signed by the President of the United States, in which 
he orders and declares all slaves within ten of the States of the 
Confederacy to be free, except in such as are to be found within 
certain districts now occupied in part by the armed forces of the 
enemy. We may well leave it to the instincts of that common 
hunianity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in the breasts 
of our fellow men of all countries to pass judgment on a meas- 
ure by which several millions of human beings of an inferior 
race — peaceful and contented laborers in their sphere — ^are 
doomed to extermination, while at the same time they are en- 



426 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

couraged to a general assassination of their masters by the in- 
sidiious recommendation to abstain from violence unless in 
necessary self-defence. Our own detestation of those who have 
attempted the most exercrable measure recorded in the history 
of guilty men, is tempered by profound contempt for the im- 
potent rage which it discloses. So far as regards the action of 
this Government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, 
I confine myself to informing you that I shall — unless in your 
wisdom you deem some other course more expedient — deliver to 
the several State authorities all commissioned officers of the 
United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces in 
any of the States embraced in the proclamation, that they may 
be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those States pro- 
viding for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting 
servile insurrection. The enlisted soldiers I shall continue to 
treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes, 
and shall direct their discharge and return to their homes on 
the proper and usual parole." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

A WIDER VIEW AND REPLY TO DISTIN- 
GUISHED AUTHORS. 

In the last chapter devoted to the Emancipation Proclamation, 
we showed how Lincoln in the beginning of his administration 
denied having any right whatever to interfere with slavery in 
the States ; and how, by gradual approaches upon constitutional 
ground, he finally proclaimed he had absolute authority to free 
all slaves without regard to State lines : — that is, that his ap- 
proaches were from no authority whatever to absolute authority 
— from zero to infinity. 

In this chapter we shall feel at liberty to take a wider scope, 
and reply to arguments presented by distinguished authors, per- 
taining to any phase of the subject, even including that of the 
last chapter. In fact this chapter may develop mostly into a 
continuation of the last. 

In the "American Statesman," (Abraham Lincoln) edited 
by John T. Morse, Jr., Vol. 2, page 95, are these words : "While 
loyalty to the Union operated as a bond to hold together the 
people of the North, slavery entered as a wedge to force them 
asunder." Slavery was not always a wedge. The time has been 
when it v/as a binding force. It must therefore have been 
forged into a wedge by beating and ham.mering. As it had not 
changed its character in the South, the wedge must have been 
forged in the North. But a wedge even when placed is harm- 
less unless driven hom.e. All know that the same section which 
did the forging did the driving. Mr. Morse said : "It was not 
long before the wedge proved a more powerful force than the 
bond, for the wedge was driven home" — by the North. 

Many were the men of the North who believed that the South 
would be satisfied with a true construction of the Constitution. 
They so proclaimed. They were denounced as "Northern men 
with Southern principles" (compliments) and were christened 
"copperheads." Pronounced "more odious than avowed seces- 
sionists," they were ridiculed, mobbed, and denounced as "auxil- 
iaries to the Confederate army." It was derisively said of them, 



428 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The North would have been much better off with a hundred 
thousand of themi in the Southern ranks, and the rest of their 
kind thoroughly subdued at home" (Grant.) These friends 
of the Constitution, and hence of right and justice, and of the 
South and of peace, did not enter the Confederate ranks but 
they "were thoroughly subdued at home" by the terrors of "the 
North American Bastile." Let it be written in letters of gold 
on the tablet of eternal truth that the Union would never have 
been endangered had not the wedge of slavery been forged and 
driven home by the North. 

This one prominent fact refutes all false charges about "the 
endangered Union" and "the threatened destruction of the Gov- 
ernment." If this Union was endangered, all the facts testify it 
was due to the aggressions of the North, and not to the sins of 
the South. Therefore, in the light of facts and truth, upon 
what ground was the South charged with treason against the 
Government? In the same light, upon what ground did an 
American President exercise a false war-power? Do not all 
know the Constitution bestows no power except delegated power 
■ — delegated in express terms? All know that the war-power to 
invade a State is neither delegated in express terms, nor in any 
other way. 

But Mr. Lincoln and Congress may have imagined that the 
Constitution in some mysterious way conferred on them the 
"war-power" to invade a State as a moral or natural right. To 
refute such a position we have only to- emphasize the incon- 
trovertible fact that the Constitution confers no right other than 
a delegated right. It can confer neither a moral right nor 
natural right to violate itself. No human production can dele- 
gate a moral right. No human production can delegate a natural 
right. It is not mankind's to give. Such a power eminates 
only from a higher source. Hence the "war-power" to invade a 
State is not delegated power from any standpoint. It is there- 
fore no authorized poiver at all. 

The exercise of this so-called war-power, unknown to the 
Constitution, justified all the forebodings of the South in case 
the Republican party should become possessed of the Govern- 
ment ; and hence the South's rightful and legal protest by se- 



ii 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 429 

cession. Had not the Lincolnian party already given evidence 
absolute of their disregard of the Constitution before their ac- 
cession to power, by knowingly, and defiantly violating, derid- 
ing, and abusing a Supreme Court's decision, which denied the 
right to restrict slavery in the Territories? And after the elec- 
tion of Lincoln, and before his ascension to power, was not this 
sarnie party still "breathing out threaitenings and slaughter" 
against "the hated slave-holder"? Did not all the world know 
now that the avowed policy of restriction in the Territories was 
but a step toward restriction in the States? Did not all men 
know that restriction in such antagonistic hands would be char- 
acterized by the venom of hate, and not by that gentle virtue 
"which thinketh no evil"? Had not the South shown the spirit 
of conciliation by all the honorable means within her power? 
Was it not the Old Dominion that suggested the Peace Con- 
gress? Did not twenty-one States respond to her appeal for 
conciliataion and meet in Washington? Did not the Lincolnian 
party send emissaries there to antagonize its proceedings ? When 
this noble body of sincere patriots had completed their task and 
had presented a report in the interest of peace, honorable alike 
to the North and South, did not that same party vote as a unit 
against it? Did not this vote proclaim in language that could 
not be misunderstood, the purpose of a relentless exercise of 
undelegated power by the Government? Had the South by any 
act of hers lost the right to demand the simple terms of the 
Constitution? When the Constitution was fresh from the hands 
of its f ramers did not all New England claim the right to secede ? 
Did a single State in all the Union deny to her that right? Did 
not all the states thus concede that secession was Constitutional? 
If secession was Constitutional, in what sense could it have 
been treasonable? If not treasonable, upon what ground could 
a false "war-power" be justified? If not justified, was it not 
unjustified? If unjustified was it not treason against the Con- 
stitution, and against the South? If treason against the Con- 
stitution and the South was not the conduct of the South, during 
the Sixties, justified? And do not all now concede that this 
is the verdict of history? 



430 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Right, like the center of a circle, can be approached from all 
directions. Hence let us reach the same conclusion from an- 
other standpoint. Do not all admit that whatever fundamental 
rights the States reserved to themselves, in framing and adopt- 
ing the Constitution, remained unchanged up to the Sixties, or 
the termination of the war? Have we not shown that the thir- 
teen colonies declared themselves States in the same sense in 
which England is a State? Do not all know England to have 
been then, as now, an independent State? Did not the thitreen 
States therefore declare themselves to be as many separate and 
independent and free States? Did any one doubt England's 
right as an independent and free State to form alliances with 
France, or Germany, or any other power? If not, could any one 
doubt the right of each of the thirteen States, free and inde- 
pendent, to form alliances with one or all of the other States, or 
with any other power? Did they not form such an alliance 
among themselves? Was not that alliance termed by them a 
Union of the States? Was not the Constitution the expressed 
terms of that alliance, no more, no less? Does any one doubt 
England's right to withdraw from an alliance she has made with 
another power, either for cause or without cause? If not, 
could any one doubt the right of one of the States to withdraw 
from the alliance it had formed with the other States, either for 
cause or without cause? If not, who can doubt the right of one 
or more of the States, that were parties to the alliance of the 
States, called the Union of States, to withdraw for cause, or 
even without cause? Who therefore can deny the justice of 
the conduct of the South during the Sixties? Is not this the 
same conclusion reached by another course of reasoning? If 
the South was right the North was wrong. The South therefore 
stands vindicated. But what of the North? Let that cruel, re- 
lentless war testify, and leave its testimony to the mercy of the 
judgment of rising generations, if such a judgment can be 
merciful. 

Let us look at the question of right from another standponit. 
Is it not known by all that restriction of slavery to the States 
was the declared object of the Lincolnian party? Had not the 
eleven Confederate States settled that question (restriction) by 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 431 

withdrawing from the Union? Do not all know that by their 
act of secession they had declared slavery limited to their own 
borders? If so, how could the restriction of slavery to the 
States be any longer an issue? Did not these eleven States 
declare more, by this act, viz : that slavery was doomed, and 
that its complete abolition was only a question of time? Hence, 
did they not declare by the act of secession that they preferred 
to free their slaves in their own way, undisturbed by antagonizing 
influences? Did they not also declare by this act that they 
would settle this question undisturbed because of their exceed- 
ingly deep interest in the security of their fire-sides, their peace, 
their prosperity, and their happiness, and, at the same time, to 
the best and most human interest of the slaves themselves? Do 
not all men of intelligent benevolent purposes, familiar with 
the conditions of society in the Southern States, know they were 
right? If right, should it not have been their supreme privilege? 
Have we not already shown by most competent testimony that 
both Gen. Lee and Gen. Jackson had developed a plan by which 
the slaves could have been gradually freed had the South suc- 
ceeded in her cause? Therefore did not the Southern States, by 
seceding, rob Lincoln and his party of their plea of "restricting 
slavery to the States"? 

Let us not forget that right can be approached from all di- 
rections. Let us therefore next approach it from the objects of 
the war. Were they not varied? Was not its first note, "to re- 
venge the insult to the flag" ? Do not all now know the flag was 
not insulted ; and that the Cabinet and the President were soon 
found in search of real issues? Do not all know that slavery 
was next declared to be the issue? Is it not also known that this 
issue was not universally acceptable? Were they not compelled 
to eliminate this issue in the border States? Were they not 
also compelled to use it directly before the courts of some of 
the foreign Governments? Did they not therefore hold on to 
slavery in sections, discarding it as an issue in others ; and at 
the same time proclaiming that the Union was the issue? Do 
not all intelligent men know that a war begun with no definite 
cause for its origin is a war wrong in principles? If wrong in its 
source, can it be anything other than wrong in all its terrible 



432 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and bloody course? As are the waters of the fountain, such are 
the waters of the stream. May we not then correctly judge 
the character of that war by that of its origin, and vice versa? 
Have we not shown that all rules of civilized warfare were 
violated in it? Was not private property ruthlessly destroyed as 
if by vandals ? Did not the South suffer the annihilation of more 
than 400,000,000 dollars worth of her property from the in- 
vading armies? Were not her innocent women and children left 
roofless? Were they not subjected to brutal insults and hard- 
ships unknown to civilization? Were not the three American 
bastiles crowded with political prisoners, arrested on mere sus- 
picion, without the shadow of law? Were not these prisoners 
denied the right of counsel on penalty of bringing upon them- 
selves increased indignities? Were not the members of the 
legislatures of the border States arrested without charge of 
crime, and incarcerated in one of the three bastiles, thus break- 
ing up quorums and preventing legislation? Was not the social 
fabric of all the Southern States disrupted without compunction 
of conscience? Were not all the branches of industry disar- 
ranged? Was not all good order destroyed? In short, was not 
a flood of evils poured out upon the South compared with v/hich 
the loss of all the property, caused by the war, was insignificant ? 
Was the commander-in-chief ignorant of the savage character of 
that war ? No ; he could not have been. Did he not say "I sup- 
pose I have the right to use any measures which may best sub- 
due the enemy f" (Morse). Dbes not the term "any measures" 
include the vilest as well as the best? Did he not say with 
solemn deliberation, "Understand, I raise no objection to it 
(emancipation proclamation) on legal or Constitutional grounds?" 
(Morse). Is not this a bold and frank confession that he dis- 
regarded the Constitution whose precepts he had sworn to obey ? 
Did he not go even further and exhibit the cruel vindictive- 
ness of the savage, by saying, "Nor do I urge objections of a 
moral nature in view of the possible consequences of insurrec- 
tion and massacre in the South?" (Morse). Who said this? 
Who weighed the words when he said it? (Excuse the words). 
Could a savage chief have been more vindictive? Can the 
character of that war, as waged by the North, be painted in 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 433 

darker colors? Can it be described in more merciless words? 
Can its unbridled cruelty be more appropriately expressed? Yet, 
who did more to bring about the conditions that thus aroused 
his savage nature than did Abraham Lincoln ? Were the North- 
ern masses moved by the same vindictive spirit? It is to be 
supposed not. For John T. Morse, Jr., in his "Abraham Lin- 
coln," tells us they were fighting under "a splendid popular de- 
lusion." As to the nature of that delusion it was more or less 
different among the different individuals. Do not these and 
the thousands of kindred facts condemn both the origin and con- 
duct of that war in terms such as few wars have seldom, if 
ever, been condemned? 

Having just referred to some of the objects, or rather ex- 
cuses of the war, let us single out the one excuse that was 
finally emphasized as the excuse, viz. : Union. May it not also 
have been a popular delusion? From the very nature of things 
could a forced Union be identical with that real hand-to-hand 
and heart-to-heart Union of the fathers? Could a forced Union, 
a Union baptized in the blood of brothers, a Union of strife 
and war, be the same as a voluntary hand and heart Union? 
Are bayonets the essence of love? Is force identical with free 
volition? Is war identical with peace? If not the Union of 
force and war is not the same as that of free choice and love. 
The Union of free States according to their own free will, bound 
together by heart-strings necessarily cannot be the same as a 
Union held together by bayonets. Hence the issue, Union, was 
a delusion, or false issue; and if a false issue, revolutionary. 

Let us next look at the question of right from another stand- 
point on the circumference of the circle of facts. Is is not a 
fact that the Union was intact in 1860? Do not all know that 
but for the very violent threats of the leaders of the political 
party, that year elevated to power, there would have been not 
even the thought of secession? If no thought, certainly no act 
of secession; and if no act of secession, certainly no endangered 
Union; and if no endangered Union, certainly no excuse for the 
exercise of a false war-power to protect it? Does it not there- 
fore follow inevitably that the war had its origin in the vio- 
lent threats originating in hearts that cherished only hatred for 



434 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the slave-holder. If so, who then were the aggressors in that 
war? Have we not shown from the very highest authorities on 
Constitutional law that the aggressors in all wars are those who 
render force necessary and not those who strike the first blow, 
or fire the first gun? It therefore follows again that the North 
were the guilty parties in that war. 

Let us consider the question of right from still another stand- 
point. Is it not universally admitted that not a single inter- 
est of the Confederacy demanded war on her part against either 
the North or any other power? Did not her very unprepared- 
ness contradict all accusations to the contrary ? Had she miade 
any preparations at all for war? Did not her self-protection, 
her very existence, call for peace and only peace? Do not all 
know it was that absolute unpreparedness of the South that so 
confidently induced the aggressions of the North? Do not all 
know that had the North and the South in the Sixties been 
equipped equally in numbers and all the facilities for war, as in 
the days of Madison and Jefferson, there would have been no 
clash of arms between the two sections? May we not perti- 
nently ask, if being equal in numbers and in all the facilities of 
war would make secession right and legal, as in the days of 
the secessionists of New England, how is it that being unequal 
in men and war facilities would make secession wrong and ille- 
gal? Was it in reality with Lincoln and his Cabinet a question 
of right? Was it not rather a question of power on the one 
hand, and the want of power on the other? If so, what must 
mankind think of the claim put forth by Lincoln and his Cab- 
inet that the unprepared South made war on the U. S. Govern- 
ment? 

We will consider another fact. Do not all know that if the 
seceding South had been left unmolested to pursue her own 
course, the years would have been comparatively but few before 
a reconciliation would have resulted, and a new Union formed 
on a more enduring basis ? Even Jefferson Davis, whom the 
North unjustly termed "the arch-traitor," intimates as much 
in his "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." Then 
what blessings would have come to both sections — blessings in- 
finitely greater than all the gold in all the hills and mountains 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 435 

and valleys and streams in both Americas! These blessings 
would have come in the saving of millions of precious lives 
in a "brothers' war," and the preventing of tens of millions of 
heart-aches, and lamentations that reached from sea to sea, and 
from the Great Lakes to the far off Gulf of Mexico. What are 
the honors of the distinguished few compared with results like 
these ? 

Take another fact: Is it not in evidence that Lincoln and 
his Cabinet talked of the great honor and the great distinction 
that would belong to the man who should be instrumental in free- 
ing nearly 4,000,000 of slaves? Is it not human to court im- 
mortality? It required no seer to foretell that an extraordinary 
achievement like this would result in immortal distinction, and 
in imimortal honor. To strike the shackles from 4,000,000 human 
beings at one fell blow was no ordinary event. Yet ye candidates 
for the honors of the world, tell us, was there not here a great 
temptation for the man in position to trample in the dust both 
law and morals, yea, even if necessary, to violate his sacred 
oath, to attain such a transcendent distinction, and, from the 
standpoint of Lincoln, such a transcendent benefaction? Is it 
not highly probable that Lincoln turned a human ear to the 
siren voice of that very great distinction, that very great honor? 
Yea, is it not more than probable that he coveted the prize? 

Let us next consider the "necessity" that was the plea of Lin- 
coln ; the necessity the demands of which he regarded as supe- 
rior to those of the Constitution ; the necessity that turned a 
Republic into an Empire — a Despotism — and then ruled that 
despotic Empire with an iron hand. Has not Lincoln confessed 
in plain terms that he violated the Constitution and justified 
himself on the plea of "necessity f" 

To know the true character of necessity we must know its ori- 
gin. To determine whether necessity is excusable or inexcusa- 
ble, whether its exercise is commendable or condemnable, just 
or unjust, we must know its character ; and its character is de- 
termined by its origin. Have we not a key to its origin in 
these words of Miss Tarbell in her "Life of Abraham Lincoln, 
Vol. 2, page 6 : "Six weeks before, when he wrote the docu- 
ment (the inaugural), he had determined to answer some of 



436 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

their questions. The first of these was, 'Will Mr. Lincoln stand 
by the Platform of the Republican Party?' He meant to open 
his address with this reply: 

"The (more) modern custom of electing a chief Magistrate 
upon a previously prepared platform of principles supercedes, 
in a great measure, the necessity of restating those principles 
in an address of this sort. Upon the plainest grounds of good 
faith, one so elected is not at liberty to shift his position. , . . 

"Having been so elected upon the Chicago Platform, and 
while I would repeat nothing in it of aspersion or epithet or 
question of motive against any man or party, I hold myself 
bound by duty, as well as impelled by inclination, to follow, 
within the executive sphere, the principles therein declared. By 
no other course could I reasonably meet the expectations of the 
country. 

"But these paragraphs were not read. On reaching Wash- 
ington in February, Mr. Lincoln's first act had been to give 
to Mr. Seward a copy of the paper he had prepared, and to 
ask for his criticisms. On the paragraphs quoted above, Mr. 
Seward wrote: 

"I declare to you my conviction that the second and third para- 
graphs, even if modified as I propose in my amendments, will 
give such advantage to the Disunionists that Virginia and Mary- 
land will secede, and we shall within ninety, perhaps within 
sixty days, be obliged to fight the South for this capital, with 
a divided North for reliance." 

Do not these plain words from Tarbell's Abraham Lincoln 
locate the origin of Lincoln's Necessity in his determination to 
supplant the Constitution with the Chicago Platform? But for 
the criticism of Seward these two paragraphs would have re- 
moved all doubt about the meaning of his adroit "conciliatory" 
(?) words in that inaugural. The very fact that they were 
intended to be a part of that document shows the color of the 
policy of the administration in its very beginning. With these 
paragraphs in that message not even the Northern masses would 
have suffered "delusion." All would have understood alike the 
meaning of "I shall take care, as the Constitution itself express- 
ly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 437 

executed in all the States," and that it meant coercion. Who 
does not read in the paragraphs quoted and in "enforcing the 
law in the States," the origin of that necessity of which Lincoln 
made so much? 

Do we not also find the same spirit in these other words of 
Lincoln: "When Anderson goes out of Fort Sumter I shall go 
out of the White House." (Tarbell). Who thinks Lincoln had 
any idea of leaving the White House? Therefore who thinks 
Lincoln expected Anderson to go out of Fort Sumter without 
a vigorous protest on his part? Do we not find here the basis 
of that necessity which played such a terrible and despotic part 
in the great war inaugurated by the policy of Lincoln? It was 
the determined spirit of these emphatic words that culminated 
in the dark days of the year 1862 into an uncivilized despotism. 

We have now located that Necessity's origin. It fed on the 
milk of its mother, the Chicago Platform. It breathed the atmos- 
phere of Delusion and Hate. It was educated in the school of 
Cunning. It exercised in the gymnasium of falsehood. It grew 
rapidly in the heat belt of passion till its giant form straddled 
and strangled the Constitution. 

Who does not now know the character of this necessity, the 
child of the Chicago Platform, itself an illegal child, denounced 
by the Constitution? Nursed in the arms of an illegal mother 
and reared in an illegal atmosphere, it grew to manhood in open 
rebellion to the Constitution; and then dressed itself in the garb 
of law, truth and morality, and strutted with the pompous air 
of the peacock before the gaze of the world, as a veritable 
instrument itself. 

If the plea of "necessity" on the part of the North was an 
argument to justify Lincoln's violations of the Constitution, was 
not the existence of such a necessity a suflficient argument to 
justify the South's withdrawal from the Union? If necessity 
on the part of the Administration justified a violation of the 
Constitution must not necessity on the part of the South have 
justified her secession? If preserving the Union by coercion of 
the States was an argument to justify these violent usurpations 
by the United States Government, was it not still more forcibly 
an argument to justify the South's separation and resistance of 



438 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

invasion? Could there be a necessity requiring a violation of 
the Constitution by the North without bringing to the South an 
urgent necessity to resist, by all honorable means, such violation 
of that instrument? Can a Constitution be preserved by being 
violated — by being destroyed? Is not a violated Constitution a 
very different thing from the Constitution itself? 

We shall now give only one other fact, viz : There were two 
sections, the North and the South in 1860-65. Did Lincoln 
know this? Both were under the same Constitution. Did Lin- 
coln know this? The South had from the origin of the Repub- 
lic believed a State had the right to withdraw from the Union. 
The North not only believed it up to 1850, but had often affirm- 
ed it, and had once virtually practiced it. Did Lincoln know 
all this? If not, how prodigious was his ignorance! But he 
was only recently from the prairies of Illinois. If he was not 
prodigiously ignorant with what astonishment ought we to read 
these words of his inaugural address ! 

"I hold in contemplation of universal law and of the Consti- 
tution, the Union of these States is perpetual." Perpetuity is 
implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all gov- 
ernments ? Here he reverses with the insane faith of the mad- 
ness of fanaticism the universal decision of the founders of the 
Republic. He essays to prove it, and the same mad confidence 
predominates in his proof. He assumes with the air of abso- 
lute certainty the correctness of his premises and his conclu- 
sion. Is this the presumption of ignorance ? Or shall we con- 
clude they were not the words of ignorance ? Certainly we must ; 
otherwise we must decide that this Republic had elevated to 
the Chief Magistracy a man unworthy to become a doorkeeper 
in the capital. The meaning of his words are incapable of 
being misunderstood. What then? We must find a motive for 
their utterances on this august occasion. May it not be that 
The New York Herald gave that motive in its criticism at the 
time, in these words : 

"The inaugural is not a crude performance ; it abounds in 
traits of craft and cunning. . . .It would have caused Washing- 
ton to mourn, and would have inspired Jefferson, Madison or 
Jackson with contempt." The Pennsylvanian took the same view, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 439 

calling it a "tiger's claw concealed under the fur of Seward- 
ism." The Atlas and Argus of Albany characterized it as a 
document, "inviting civil war." Who can doubt its key-note was 
craft and deception? 

Mr. Lincoln may have been ignorant of the Constitution. We 
believe he was, but not to the extent this language indicates. 
But who believes he was ignorant of human nature? Who be- 
lieves he was not skilled in "craft and cunning?" Had he 
not sized up the ignorance of the masses? Did he not know 
how, with quasi-authoritative and quasi-conciliatory words, to 
strike the note of popular accord, and thus unite the masses of 
the North? Did ever a man so pervert the Constitution, and 
so contradict the acknowledged facts of history, and yet so 
strongly impress the masses of a great section with his sincerity 
as to the truth of every utterance from his lips? That was a 
masterful address, but its masterfulness does not consist in its 
profound truths and its statesmanlike utterances, but in its deep- 
laid "craft and cunning." 

It also failed in true statesmanship because it refused to con- 
sider the momentous issues of the hour from the disinterested 
standpoint of each of the two great sections. Had the South 
no grievances? If not, did he not know they believed they had? 
If they sincerely believed they had grievances, should not these 
have been considered from their standpoint? Do not all know 
that Lincoln was elected by less than 38 1-3 per cent of the 
votes cast by the States? Did such a small vote justify him 
in saying, "I hold myself bound in duty" to discard the long es- 
tablished construction of the Constitution, "and follow within 
the executive sphere, the principles therein (Chicago Platform) 
declared ?" Did he not know that even though had he been elect- 
ed by a majority vote that fact would not have authorized him 
to say, "No State upon its mere motion can lawfully get out of 
the Union ; that resolutions and ordinances to that effect are 
legally void; and that acts of violence within any State or States 
against the authority of "the U. S. are insurrectionary, or revo- 
lutionary, according to circumstances?" Was it not by "reso- 
lutions and ordinances" that these States entered the Union? 
Is it possible Lincoln was so ignorant as not to know that un- 



440 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

der "universal law" as well as under the "Constitution" that 
what these States did of their own free will they could undo in 
the same manner? Whether he did or not, the South knew it, 
and the North had known it. 

Why then did he not meet the South upon the standpoint of 
her grievances? Was The Atlas and Argus right in saying he 
was "inviting civil war?" 

The deeper the probe goes into this inaugural address the more 
evident becomes the fact that Lincoln made no effort to pacify 
the South. 

Tarbell says : 

"In his original copy of the inaugural address, Mr. Lincoln 
wrote: 'All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim 
the public property and places which have fallen ; to hold, occupy, 
and possess these, and all other property and places belonging 
to the Government?' At the suggestion of the Hon. O. H. 
Browning, of Illinois, he dropped the words, 'to reclaim the pub- 
lic property and the places which have fallen." (vol. 1, p. 9). 

The spirit of these far-reaching words was anything else than 
conciliatory ; it was the spirit of madness, the spirit of zvar. Dis- 
guise it as }'0U please, all omissions and all changes of phrase- 
ology were strokes of policy — mere strokes at deception. When 
this address shall have been thoroughly analyzed and thoroughly 
sifted of all its ambiguities and all its contradictions by the fu- 
ture historian, the question will be raised zvas Lincoln sane or 
insane? Can his enigmatical life, his confident assumption that 
all who had preceded him were wrong and he alone was right, 
be accounted for on the ground of sanity? We may devote a 
chapter to Lincoln's insanity. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

A FALSE WAR-POWER UNDER THE PLEA 
OF NECESSITY. 

"There is no longer any Constitution." — Thadeus Stevens. 

In the last chapter we have shown that all war-power right- 
fully belonging to the Federal Government refers to foreign wars 
— not to a war with one or more of the States. In fact, a prop- 
osition was made in the Philadelphia Convention to give the 
Federal Government the right to coerce a State, and it was 
voted down by such an overwhelming majority that it was never 
again mentioned till Lincoln had invaded the Southern States, 
and needed it. For Lincoln to need a thing was for Lincoln to 
have it. He was, however, prudent enough to keep his hand 
on the public purse, and to know when it was safe to take an 
illegal step. As proof of this fact witness these words of Morse, 
page 99 : 

"It was as an exercise of the President's War-Power they 
(Abolitionists) demanded the proclamation (Emancipation) ; and 
the difficulty in the way of it was that Mr. Lincoln felt and 
a great majority of the Northern men were positive in the opin- 
ion, that such a proclamation at inis time would not be an honest 
and genuine exercise of war-power, that it would be only false- 
ly and colorably so-called." 

The phrase, "At this time," is very significant when taken in 
connection with the opinion of "a great majority of Northern 
men." Mr. Lincoln dared not issue that proclamation till the 
public opinion of the North would tolerate it. This fact suo-o-ests 
that Northern public opinion was manufactured according to the 
demands of the wants of the Government. Hence the first thing 
to do now was to create a different public opinion. And the 
"craft and cunning" of the Administration had not yet known 
failure. 

Those not familair with the Constitution might infer from the 
words of Morse, just quoted, that they were discussing some 
important clause in the Constitution, and were in doubt just 
under what peculiar conditions the war-power became operative. 



442 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

But from preamble to finish there was no such clause. They 
were not discussing the Constitution at all, but one of its substi- 
tutes. Why then this display of scruples of conscience? Why 
this pretended honesty of purpose? May it not have been to 
make it appear there was such a clause in the Constitution ? Did 
they not know that the masses, their main dependence, got all 
their views of the Constitution, not by reading it, but by what 
others said about it? Therefore they spoke and feigned before 
they acted. With all their scruples and honesty of purpose 
were they ever known to specify the Article, Section and Clause 
in which their war-power to invade a State was found? 

As a result of the foregoing it is evident that the concluding 
paragraph in the Emancipation Proclamation was both an un- 
constitutional and false invocation; "And upon this act, believed 
to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon mili- 
tary necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, 
and the gracious favor of Almighty God." It is well known that 
Judge Chase is the author of this paragraph, and that Lincoln 
merely assented to it. 

It is also well known that for a long time Lincoln was known 
as "that infidel;" and had he now become the most devout 
of all the devout, it would be inconsistent with his piety to invoke 
God's favor on an unconstitutional measure — a measure, which 
we shall show from Lincoln's own lips in the following pages 
of this chapter, he thought might be attended with most dis- 
astrous results to defenseless women and children in the South. 

In all ages of the world and among all civilized people a vio- 
lated oath has ever been regarded as one of the greatest of all 
wrongs to the peace and security of society. Unless indefed this 
act was warranted " by the Constitution" there is no evading the 
conclusion that Lincoln violated his oath of office. Mr. Lincoln 
himself declared he violated the Constitution in these words : "I 
felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional, might become law- 
ful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Consti- 
tution through the preservation of the Nation. Right or wrong, 
I assumed this ground and now avow it." (Abraham Lincoln- 
Morse Vol. 2, p. 102). 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 443 

Here is an unqualified confession made by the President, de- 
liberately made, and emphatically declared, that he had violated 
his oath of office. Upon what ground did he justify this viola- 
tion of his oath? Hear him: "I felt." Felt what? "That un- 
constitutional measures might be made lawful." How? By the 
House and Senate with the approval of the President and three- 
fourths of the States? No; that is the Constitutional method, 
not now desired ; but by the strange method of preserving the 
Constitution by violating it — by destroying it. To preserve a 
Constitution by destroying it is the eighth wonder of the world. 
Do not all know the opportune time to preserve the Constitu- 
tion by preserving the nation was before he and his party began 
their first attacks upon it? Is it not now known that all the 
dangers that then threatened the Constitution and the Govern- 
nient, were the direct results of those party aggressions? Will 
history indorse the men who madly and blindly endangered the 
Constitution, and then made its very dangers the bulwark of 
their defense? Shall the authors of a wrong to a peaceful and 
law-abiding people, murder them in the name of that wrono- 
because that people resisted ; and then plead that wrong in self- 
defense? 

In this same communication Mr. Lincoln wrote: "I am natur- 
ally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong nothing is wrong." 
Without either contradicting or assenting to this proposition, it 
is universally admitted that no fact is better established than this : 
The very Constitution he would preserve by destroying it, en- 
dorsed and protected the institution of slavery; it was strongly 
proslavery. It is also universally admitted that no fact is better 
established than that the Government for which that proslavery 
Constitution stood, had, in its beginning, for its chief corner 
stone this same institution ; that when this Constituton was adopt- 
ed all the States were proslavery; and hence the Revolutionary 
War was fought by proslavery States without a single excep- 
tion. 

If now it be conceded that slavery was wrong the conclusion is 
inevitable that all the States were participants in that wrong. 
Ought not a wise and just ruler have been influenced by this 
fact? Shall one of the two sections of a great country sell a 



444 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

great wrong to the other section, pocket the money, and then turn 
upon it and rob it and plunder and murder and defame it for 
that wrong? Is this characteristic of a just and wise executive? 
If the violation of an oath "is not wrong, nothing is wrong." 
To this wrong Lincoln pleaded guilty. In it he was sustained 
bv the North. It was the violation of no ordinary oath. It 
was that of the Chief Magistrate of the great American Republic. 
It involved the rights and the welfare of many millions of hu- 
man beings, and the security of many billions of property. Few 
sane men would have risked the violation of such an oath. For 
an individual to violate his oath, in a court of justice, is uni- 
versally regarded as a very great wrong. How great a wrong, 
therefore, with all of its infinite reaches, must be the violation 
of the oath of the Chief Magistrate of a great nation? 

But Mr. Lincoln pleaded in self-defense, "I did understand, 
however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best 
of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by ev- 
ery indispensable means, that Government — that nation of which 
the Constitution was the organic law." A very pertinent ques- 
tion here is. How could the Government be preserved unchanged 
by violating the Constitution? To enforce a violated Constitu- 
tion was to enforce a changed Constitution ; and a changed Con- 
stitution necessarily involved a changed Government. Hence Mr. 
Lincoln was attempting that which was impossible; and his ex- 
cuse was groundless. 

Mr. Morse's comment on this very extraordinary, illegal and 
revolutionary position is as follows: "None could deny that 
the North could abolish slavery in the South only by beating 
the South in the pending war. Therefore, by his duty as Pres- 
ident of the Union and by his wishes as an anti-slavery man. 
Mr. Lincoln was equally held to win this fight." 

Here again we find the central and controlling motive of the 
great conflict to have been the abolition of slavery in the South. 
This fact dominates every issue of the war. As this could 
be accomplished "only by beating the South in the pending con- 
flict," Mr. Lincoln was under obligations both "as President and 
as an anti-slavery man" to use every indispensable means to 
that end. Every indispensable means included the horrors of the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 445 

North American bastiles, and every conceivable exercise of un- 
bridled illegal authority. Yet his title was that of Executive, 
one who carries laws into effect. 

Mr. Greeley, a leading statesman of Lincoln's party, "demand- 
ed to be informed whether Mr. Lincoln designed to save the 
Union 'by recognizing, obeying and enforcing the laws or by 
ignoring and disregarding and in fact defying them." Mr. 
Greeley lived long enough to receive the answer to his question 
He learned that just as the Constitution was preserved by vio- 
lating it, the laws were enforced by disregarding them. Is 
there any wonder that "Thaddeus Stevens was wont to say in 
his defiant inconoclastic style, that there was no longer any 
Constitution; and that he was weary of hearing 'this never-end- 
ing gabble about the sacredness of the Constitution?'" (Morse 
vol 3, p. 109). Thaddeus Stevens and Lincoln had equal rev- 
erence or rather equal irreverence, for the Constitution. The 
bluntness of the irrepressible and irresponsible Stevens permit- 
ted him to conceal nothing. The caution of the politic Lincoln 
caused him to hug the Constitution to his bosom while violat- 
ing it. 

On the 13th of September, 1862, to a body of clergymen from 
Chicago, urging immediate and universal emancipation, Mr. Lin- 
coln used the following words coming little short, in character, 
if any, to those of Thaddeus Stevens: "Understand I raise no 
objections to it on legal or Constitutional grounds, for, as Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, in time of war, I sup- 
pose I have a right to take any measure which may best sub- 
due the enemy; nor do I urge objections of a moral nature in 
view of the possible consequences of insurrection and massacre 
in the South." (Morse, vol. II, p. 111). We have already re- 
ferred to these words but because of their peculiar appropriate- 
ness we' repeat them here. 

^'Understand I raise no objections to it on legal or Constitu- 
tional grounds," means, if anything that neither the laws enacted 
by the National Legislature or State Legislatures, nor the Con- 
stitution, the fundamental law of the Nation, influenced him at 
all. He virtually exclaimed with Thad Stevens, "There is no 
Constitution" — "no law, but my will." 



446 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"I suppose I have a right to use any means in time of war 
which may best subdue the enemy" is a mere supposition. It 
is unsustained by law. It means that he is without any legal 
restraints whatever, concealing the fact that all reference to 
wars in the Constitution is to wars with foreign Nations. The 
Constitution is just as free from all reference to a war between 
the Central Government and one or more of the States as it 
is to a war between the Government and the man in the moon. 
Why? For the simple reason that the framers of the Consti- 
tution were very jealous of the rights of their respective States, 
and did not think it safe to authorize the Federal Government, 
under any circumstances, to make war on a State. Only the in- 
sanity of fanaticism would have assumed that the power to reg- 
ulate the conduct of a war with a foreign nation applied to 
a war between the Government and a State, or States. Nothing 
is plainer than that the Constitution made no provisions for 
such a war. 

. ."Nor do I urge objections of a moral nature in viezv of the 
possible consequences of insurrection or massacres in the South" 
deserves the anathemas of civilization — anathemas in the sense 
of "excommunication with curses" from the right to be classed 
among the utterances of civilized rulers. It shows to what 
merciless and unbridled extent in outrage and murder of inno- 
cent women and children in their defenseless homes, he would 
go. And this was Abraham Lincoln, the "spotless" ( ?) Apostle 
of freedom (?), of right (?), and of "justice" ( ?) ! We can 
account for this anomaly among civilized rulers on one or both 
of two grounds only, viz. : his ignorance of the Constitution or 
his insanity on the subject of abolitionism. Nor can the depths 
of his depravity be fathomed without unearthing the very prom- 
inent part he and his allies took, by speech and threats, and by 
denunciations of the Constitution, before his election, in creating 
the very conditions then existing. He was willing to encourage 
"insurrections and massacres in the South" because of condi- 
tions his own sins and the sins of his allies had brought about. 
Are our school books correct in saying, "Lincoln had a tender 
heart?" If so, were not the emotions of that tender heart over- 
ruled by the madness of fanaticism as to anti-slaveryism? Soc- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 447 

rates said to a new acquaintance, "Speak that I may see thee." 
Lincohi has spoken. In what hght do we see him? If the facts 
do not justify this criticism we apologize. 

Let it not be forgotten that the basis of this war was laid 
by the North years before the secession of the Southern States ; 
laid in the vituperations, and abuses of the South ; in the open 
abuses and violations of the Constitution. Had the North been 
as true to the Constitution as had been the South, the Union 
would never have been "endangered," and the red hand of war 
would never have left its imprint of destruction in the blood 
of brothers, on the most conspicuous page of American history. 

Let not the indifference of the living in the midst of their 
prosperity overlook the loss of the noble dead in both the 
North and the South. They gave their lives to the cause they 
believed right. In giving their lives they sacrificed all things 
dear to young manhood. All this was due to the violations of the 
Constitution. 

In the midst of the great prosperity that has succeeded the 
war we are too apt to forget that a friendly settlement of our 
differences was possible without a resort to war; that this pol- 
icy would have brought equally as great blessings to the North 
and far greater to the South than the sword did. The South 
would then have been spared the evil consequences of the sud- 
den and irregular emancipation of the ignorant and helpless 
slaves. Nor would they have had this evil indefinitely increased 
by the equally as sudden gift of the ballot to these freedmen, 
a fact that brought with it the untold evil of the great swarms 
of carpet-baggers who, by false representations, used the ignor- 
ant negro to secure political positions which enabled them to rob 
the Southern States of millions of revenue. 

In estimating the losses caused by that war we must not only 
consider the sacrifices these noble and brave heroes made in giv- 
ing up their lives, but we most also include in the calcultaion 
the money value of all these lives to the Government. It is 
estimated by the Committee of One Hundred on National Health 
(Bulletin 30) that the "net worth of a person in dollars" is as 
follows: "No years old, $90; 5 years old, $950; 10 years old, 



448 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

$2,000; 20 years old, $4,000; 30 years old, $4,100; 50 years 
old, $2,900 ; and 80 years old, $700." 

If we make these figures the basis of our estimate and add to 
the vast number who, at different times, died as the result of 
wounds received on the field of war, the loss in dollars will go 
far up into the billions. It has been estimated that the cost of 
that war to the United States alone, independent of the patrio- 
tic lives that went out as the result of that struggle, was no less 
than "eight billion dollars." Combine the two estimates and tell 
us what the immense loss was to this American Republic. We 
affirm that it was possible, by pursuing Constitutional methods. 
to have settled our differences without resort to war. In other 
chapters we have shown how this could have been done. Then 
all the lives sacrificed could have been devoted to constructive 
pursuits, and all that treasure to peaceful channels in enriching 
the Republic. 

We are prone to imagine in the midst of our prosperity that 
no other alternative than that of war could have made the 
country so prosperous. If the South is prosperous today it is in 
spite of the annihilation of her millions upon millions of dol- 
lars ; in spite of the ashes of her dwellings and her granaries ; 
in spite of the sacrifice of the lives of the vast majority of her 
patriotic sons ; in spite of all the bitterness and hate engendered 
by war; in spite of all the additional wrongs and robberies of 
reconstruction — wrongs surpassed in cruelty and extent only by 
the great war itself . If the South could recuperate and grow 
rich in so short a time after all these wrongs and losses why 
should not a recourse to peaceful and Constitutional methods 
have been attended with infinitely greater blessings? 

"About the end of July or the beginning of August, 1862, 
Mr. Lincoln called a cabinet meeting. To this assemblange of 
his Secretaries he then said with his usual simplicity that he 
was going to communicate something about which he did not 
desire them to offer any advice since his determination was 
taken ; they might make suggestions as to details, nothing more. 
After this imperious statement he read the preliminary proclama- 
tion of emancipation Such presentations of one man 

power certainly stood out in startling relief upon the background 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 449 

of popular government and the great free republican system of 
the world." (American Statesmen, Edited, John T. Morse, vol. 
11, pp. 114-115). 

And this was in free America! Consider the words "imper- 
ious statement," and "one man certainly stood out in startling 
relief upon the background of popular government ;" and then 
tell us what is the character of the praise they imply? Have 
they the true ring of immortal verity? Is not "imperious" the 
synonym of despotic? And who has the right to be despotic but 
a despot? How insignificant was the great American Constitu- 
tion in the presence of this "imperious statement!" Yet that 
Constitution was the production of the labored efifort of the 
wisest of statesmen after much discussion and many compro- 
mises; and the adoption of that Constitution by the States was 
the result of a wider discussion and a searching criticism to 
which few public documents have ever been subjected. 

It is but natural that Morse and Lothrop and Hale and Put- 
nam, and the great host of other Northern writers should defend 
Lincoln in his "startling" usurpations. They belong to that sec- 
tion which claimed Lincoln, and in whose name he waged the 
great war. Whatever honor or dishonor the future judgment 
of mankind shall bestow upon Lincoln the section to which he 
belonged will share it to a greater or less extent. The future 
historian will exhonorate the great Northern masses who were 
misled by that "splendid popular delusion," to which reference 
has been made, but will hold the leaders in that "splendid pop- 
ular delusion to a strict account." 

Perhaps it is not generally known that Lincoln is not extolled 
for any great virtues except in the North and by Northern 
writers. Hear what Mr. Hapgood, a writer well known to the 
readers of this volume, says: "Singularly enough, perhaps, al- 
most nothing of worth has been written about Lincoln in for- 
eign countries." As a philanthropist and statesman his praise 
is confined almost exclusively to the North. The outside world 
regards him in the light of a usurper, a cruel autocrat in a 
Republic of Republics. (If the facts do not justify this criti- 
cism, we are at fault.) When his own sectional admirers shall 
have passed from the stage of action, and a new generation shall 



450 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

review the facts of the Sixties in their true light, they will con- 
fess with sorrow the errors of Lincoln and the North, and will 
place no higher estimate upon the character of Lincoln than do 
the scholars of foreign nations today. 

A talented Englishman (Henry) devotes two large volumes 
to the character and merits of Stonewall Jackson ; and Lee is 
held in highest admiration for his superb talents and virtues the 
world over. Davis, too, is regarded as the peerless President 
of "the pure white Republic" that rose like a "thing of beauty" 
on the political horizon and went down without a stain. These 
and other Southern stars will shine with brighter luster through- 
out the ages to come. With them the necessity to violate the 
usages of civilized warfare was even greater than with Lincoln 
and his Cabinet, yet they proudly point to their record and chal- 
lenge the world for one act of theirs that will not stand the sever- 
est test of civilization. 

Perhaps there is no stronger defense of the South than the 
character of her statesmen, her military leaders, and the rank 
and file of her army. Even her privates were superb in charac- 
ter. The invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania testifies to their 
individual integrity and their regard for private rights. They 
were refined, they were competent, they were models as privates. 
Nine out of ten would have worn with credit the insignia of a 
commission. As to the officers of the Confederacy, both civil 
and military, they were the peers of the best whose names his- 
tory delights to honor. Is it characteristic of such men as these 
to commit treason against their Government? Think of Lee, 
matchless not only as a military chieftain, but as a character also. 
The world has never produced his superior as a moral charac- 
ter. Was Lee guilty of treason? If Lee was not neither was his 
army. If the Confederate forces were not neither was Davis. 
The entire South was on the defensive against her protest, and 
against her best efforts to avert disunion and war. This being 
true, who were in the wrong? Facts have tongues, and facts are 
immortal. Their language is that of immortality. It is as true 
as undying. To the immortal proclamation of the facts the 
South confidently commits her cause. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SOME SIGNIFICANT FACTS AND SOME IM- 
PORTANT WITNESSES. 

We have shown, in a general way, that there are at least three 
very important facts overlooked or disregarded always by Lin- 
coln, viz: (1) That the basis of the Civil War was laid years 
before the Sixties in the aggressions of Northern abolitionism ; 

(2) The equal responsibility of the North and the South for 
the existence of the institution of slavery in this country; and 

(3) the impossibility of a correct and just decision of the ques- 
tions, growing out of the institution of slavery, without resting 
them on the true basis of the war and the common responsibility 
for the institution. 

Lincoln said, "I am naturally anti-slavery." He was there- 
fore naturally inclined to find some excuse to evade the Consti- 
tution which was strongly proslavery. We have seen how hard 
pressed he was by the Chicago clergymen and Northern aboli- 
tionists to issue the emancipation proclamation. "The Dark 
Days" of 1862 also spelt in their own peculiar hieroglyphics, the 
word necessity. Then, too, Lee with his dreaded "invincibles" 
began his Northern march. This was immediately followed by 
a very influential conference, no less than that of the Governors 
of the loyal States. It was held at Altoona on the 24th of 
September, 1862. Its object was "to discuss the situation and 
especially the emergency created by the Northern advance of 
Lee." (Morse vol. 2, page 117). Here was no ordinary influ- 
ence. It was welcomed by Lincoln. Perhaps it originated in 
his own shrewd brain. It is well known that about this time 
he sent Seward through all the Northern States, asking "the 
Governors and influential men" to urge him (the President) 
to issue a call for more troops. This influence was added to 
that of the ministers, the abolitionists, "the dark days," the 
Governors' Conference, and of the coming of Lee. Then the 
die was cast. It was then the President said, "You must not 
expect me to give up this Government without playing my last 
card." 



452 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

If he had not played his first card so aggressively and pomp- 
ously, following it up with threats and illegal acts, he would 
not now have been compelled to play "his last card." The last 
card of the entire pack had now been thrown, and without 
a single exception all had been thrown for war and not for 
peace. 

The infinite phrase, "To give up this Government," was as 
full of deception and cunning as an egg is of meat. It falsely 
implied that the South was the aggressor, and it was malic- 
iously attacking the Government to destroy it. It implied that 
the basis of the then existing troubles was not laid in the long 
ago bitter assaults of anti-slaveryism — not in the avowed un- 
constitutional platforms. It implied, that all the teachings of 
three-fourths of a century were erroneous. It implied that an 
election by less than 38 1-2 per cent of the voters of the States 
had changed the Constitution; and that all who refused to con- 
sent to this fact were traitors and rebels. It implied that, while 
it was once possible for nine of these same States to with- 
draw from the original compact of thirteen States without de- 
stroying the great principle of self-government, it was impos- 
sible in the Sixties for eleven out of 33 States to withdraw with- 
out demolishing the Government. It implied that the 13 colonies 
were mistaken when they declared themselves free and independ- 
eni States in the same sense that Great Britain was a State. It 
implied that the Declaration of Independence was a fraud and 
a falsehood. In short, it implied that Lincoln was the embod- 
iment of right, and that all his utterances were the gospel of 
the Government. Thus the facts of history were contracted 
with infinite complacency and self-assurance ; and the system of 
Government changed with superb indifference. We can account 
for such a character at such a time only upon the basis of 
ignorance and moral insanity, either or both ; and we believe 
that the time will come when the world will thus account for 
his anomalous conduct. 

Let it also be remembered that the South had never violated 
the Constitution (unless she did so by her votes in the spirit 
of compromise), but had simply contended in the halls of Con- 
gress and on the rostrum for her rights in the plain terms of 



.1 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 453 

the Constitution, Let it also be remembered that in the Con- 
vention which framed the Constitution the proposition to grant 
to the General Government the power to coerce a State or States 
of the Union was overwhelmingly voted down, thus receiving 
no favor in that convention, which knew far more about the 
Constitution than did Lincoln, Lincoln to the contrary notwith- 
standing. These and other equally important facts will forever 
stand out above the plane of the Constitution like the peaks of 
the great Rocky Mountain system, as eternal witnesses to the 
truth of history. Before their testimony all such pleas as "play- 
ing my last card" will be assigned to ignominy as hypocritical, 
unjust, illegal and tyrannical. 

We might suppose from his complacency and self-assurance 
that this proclamation was well received throughout the North. 
But was it? Mr. Morse says, "The measure took the country 
by surprise;" that "some remained just as distrustful and dis- 
satisfied toward him (Lincoln) as ever." "Some said he had 
been forced into this policy, some that he drifted with the tide," 
thus evidently without the all important compass, the Constitu- 
tion. Others said "he fwas false to the responsibility of a 
ruler." "Its immediate practical effect was to unite the South 
and divide the North. Upon the whole, it created general alarm 
throughout the North." These extracts from Morse's Abraham 
Lincoln (American Statesman) speak for themselves. Are they 
condemnatory? They show that the spirit of Northern injus- 
tice was not yet general. So great was the sentiment of dis- 
satisfaction that Congress felt compelled to come to the assis- 
tance of Lincoln and by resolution ratify the President's policy 
"as well adapted to hasten the restoration of peace" and "well 
chosen as a war measure." It is thus always with wrong and 
injustice. Truth and right never need props. Wrong and in- 
justice always do. 

Consider another fact. "The President himself afterward de- 
clared 'his conviction' that had the proclamation been issued six 
months earlier it would not have been sustained" — thus declar- 
ing it absolutely necessary to first create a public opinion before 
it would be sustained. As it was, when issued, Mr. Wilson says, 
"The larger numbers received it with deadly and outspoken op- 



454 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

position." Professing great respect, even reverence, for public 
opinion, he created a public opinion to suit his purposes. 

What now becomes of that "Necessity," declared to have made 
the proclamation constitutional? If this necessity was the re- 
sult of his own creations was it not artificial, and hence false? 
But according to Wilson, public opinion did not sustain it at 
the time the proclamation was issued. For "the larger num- 
bers received it with deadly and outspoken opposition." Had 
he changed as to public opinion ? Did he not assert in his inau- 
gural address that his election upon the Chicago Platform com- 
mitted his policy to the principles of that platform because of 
the will of the people? And this, too, when elected by less than 
39 per cent of the votes cast? But he was elected, and on the 
Chicago Platform? Yes. Did that platform express the sen- 
timents of the American people? No; not by sixty-one and four- 
fifths per cent. But did not Mr. Lincoln assume that the peo- 
ple had elected him President ? Yes ; and correctly so. Did not 
this election, therefore, place the Chicago Platform above all 
Supreme Court decisions? By no means. That platform had 
not been submitted to the States as an amendment to the Con- 
stitution, and was not so regarded. The Constitution makes 
special provision for submitting to the States Constitutional 
amendments for their approval or rejection. The submission 
of that platform to the people was made by a political party, 
and not as an amendment to the Constitution. 

But did not Mr. Lincoln assume that his election demanded 
the policy of the Chicago Platform? Yes, but wrongfully so. 
Did he not say, "If I had issued that proclamation six months 
earlier it would not have been sustained?" Does not Mr. Wil- 
son say, "It met with deadly and outspoken opposition by the 
large numbers" when issued? Do not Lincoln and Wilson es- 
tablish the fact that public sentiment was against it six months 
earlier and at the time it was issued? But even if sustained 
by public opinion would that justify his assumption as to mak- 
ing the Chicago Platform his policy? Not even if he had been 
elected by a majority vote, for that platform was unconstitu- 
tional according to a Supreme Court decision. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 455 

If public sentiment was decidedly against the proclamation 
six months before it was issued what about it on the 4th of 
March, 1861, the time of the inauguration nearly two years earl- 
ier? Will not all admit that if Lincoln in his inaugural address 
had declared his purpose to issue a general emancipation proc- 
lamation the entire North would have stood as a solid wall of 
adamant against him? How then was this great change of pol- 
icy brought about? Who can say every step of approach was 
not of cunning and deception? 

We ask further: If the Chicago Platform had declared in ad- 
vance in favor of issuing a general emancipation proclamation 
under any circumstances, would Lincoln have been elected? Do 
not all know that both Lincoln and his platform would have met 
with a Waterloo? Whence then this boast that it was in accord- 
ance with the sentiment of the American people? Do not all 
know, therefore, that the war was the result of a disguised pol- 
icy? That every step in its conduct was a step of cunning and 
intrigue? Has it not been admitted that the Northern masses 
were under "a splendid popular delusion?" Do not all know 
that foreign powers were deceived both as to the character of 
the Government and the cause of the war? Do not all Know 
that Federal defeats were often claimed as victories by the 
Government, and that small victories were often magnified into 
great ones? Was not even the drawn battle of Antietam claimed 
as a victory, and made the occasion of issuing the emancipation 
proclamation? These things being true, was not the war from 
'ihe standpoint of the South a contest for truth and principle, 
and from the standpoint of the North a contest for emancipa- 
tion and revolution? 

Mr. Alorse says, "It soon became evident that a formidable 
reaction of this (hostile) kind had taken place; that dissatis- 
faction with the anti-slave measures and discouragements to- 
q-ether were even imperiling Republican ascendency, meant, in fact, 
the speedy settlement of the war by compromise. . .There- 
fore in those elections of the autumn months in 1861 the whole 
question of Union or Disunion had to be fought out at the 
polls in the loyal States, and there was an appalling chance of 
its going against the Union party. . . 



456 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The Democracy made its fight on the ground that the anti- 
slavery legislation of the Republican majority in the 37th Con- 
gress had substantially made abolition the ultimate purpose of 
the war. Here. then, they said was a change of base. 

"The administration had committed itself, the party and the 
nation decisively to the 'bold, far-reaching, radical and aggres- 
sive policy,' from which it would be impossible afterward to turn 
back without deliberately resolving to sacrifice our nationality. 
Tn his proclamation Lincoln proclaimed to the people "that their 
only chance now lay between slavery on the one hand and na- 
tionality on the other, so that of the two things they might 
take that one of the two they deemed the more worthy. The 
two togetlier they never could again have." 

Unless the people could divest themselves of all delusions, and 
look backward to the origin of the troubles of these "dark 
days" it would seem utterly impossible to present to them a 
stronger appeal than these simple words of Lincoln. Yet who 
does not see the fallacy in such phrases as these, "without de- 
liberately sacrificing our nationality" and "between slavery on 
the one hand and nationality on the other." Would the nation- 
ality of the United States have been destroyed by the secession 
of a few States? Just as well ask would a tree be destroyed 
by removing a few of its limbs? Lincoln had a peculiar genius 
of making error appear to be truth, and fiction appear to be 
fact. Morse says, "He was a shrewd politician in matter of 
detail." The very atmosphere of a frontier life seems to im- 
plant in the human mind a cunning, a shrewdness, to which 
civilization is a stranger; and when to this is added a moral 
insanity the cunning and shrewdness become such indeed. 

Under strong appeals like these the men of the loyal States 
went to the polls in the autumn of 1863. "In September, in Maine 
upon a vote for Governor, a Republican majority, which usually 
ranged from 10,000 to 19,000, was reduced to 4,000, and for 
the first time in ten years a Democrat secured a seat in the 
House of Representatives." 

"In October, Ohio elected 14 Democrats to 5 Republicans. In 
Indiana 8 Democrats and 3 Republicans were sent to Congress. 
In Pennsylvania the Congressional delegation was divided, but 



,?i 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 457 

the Democrats polled the larger vote by about 4,000 ; 'whereas 
Mr. Lincoln had had a majority of 60,000' ! In New York the 
famous Democratic leader, Horatio Seymour, was elected Gov- 
ernor by about 10,000 majority. Illinois, the President's own 
State, showed a Democratic majority of 17,000, and her Con- 
gressional delegation stood 11 Democrats to 3 Republicans. 
New Jersey turned from Republican to Democracy. Michigan 
reduced a Republican majority from 20,000 to 6,000. When the 
returns were all in, the Democrats who had only 44 votes in 
the House in the 37th Congress, had 75 in its successor. Even 
if the non-voting absentees in the army had been all Republi- 
cans, which they certainly were not, such a reaction would have 
been appalling. 

"Fortunately some other Northern States — New England's 
six and Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, California and Oregon — held 
better to their Republican faith. But it was actually the border 
slave States which in these dark nad desperate days, came gal- 
lantly to the rescue of the President's party. 

"Thus was the much maligned border State policy at last 
vindicated ; and thanks to it the frightened Republicans saw, 
with relief, that they could command a majority of about twenty 
votes in the House. Mr. Lincoln (not the border States) had 
saved the party whose leaders had turned against him. 

"Beneath the dismal shadow of these autumnal elections the 
thirty-seventh Congress came together for its final session De- 
cember 1, 1862. The political situation was peculiar and unfor- 
tunate. There was the greatest possible need for sympathetic 
co-operation in the Republican party ; but sympathy was absent, 
and co-operation was imperfect and reluctant. The majority of 
the Republican members of Congress obstinately maintained their 
alienation from the Republican President ! an enormous popular 
defection from Republicanism had taken place in its natural 
strongholds ; and Republican domination had only been saved by 
the aid of States in li/hich Republican majorities had been at- 
tainable because a large proportion of the population was so 
disaifected as either to have enlisted in the Confederate service, 
or to have refrained from voting at elections held under Union 



458 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

auspices" (American Statesmen — Abraham Lincoln — Edited by- 
John T. Miorse, vol II, pp. 120-126). 

We have quoted extensively from Mr. Morse because of his 
graphic statement of facts, and because of his high rank as a 
Northern authority. 

Note that Democracy made its fight on the ground that the 
Republican majority in Congress had substantially made aboli- 
tion the ultimate purpose of the war', "and that the Republicans 
made their fight on the ground that the only choice of the peo- 
ple now lay between slavery on the one hand and nationality on 
the other so that of the two things they might take that which 
they deemed the more worthy," adding "the two together they 
never could have again?" 

The issues were clearly made. We have seen the result. Lin- 
coln was overwhelmingly voted "a want of confidence." He 
was saved only by the border slave States, not because they 
"came gallantly to the rescue," but because in these States in 
the words of Morse himself, "Republican majorities had been 
attainable since a large proportion of the population was so 
disafifected as either to have enlisted in the Confederate service 
or to have refrained from voting at elections held under Union 
auspices." 

"Under Union auspices" meant under bayonet rule. Under 
bayonet rule meant under a military despotism ,a despotism that 
had created the three American bastiles — a despotism that meant 
absolutely subjection to the will of the administration. In that 
election the border slave States had no more will of their own 
than a machine in action. It therefore follows that it was the 
grip of the iron hand of absolutism upon the border States 
that won out in the great struggle in which the South went 
down exhausted, fighting for her Constitutional rights. With- 
out the shadow of authority to invade a State, Lincoln cov- 
ered the border States with his hordes of soldiers. With greedy 
lus.t for power, under the plea of necessity, he throttled these 
local governments and turned them into political machines for 
the accomplishment of his own purposes. He arrested and im- 
prisoned their citizens till fear and prudence subdued their pat- 
riotism. When the North turned against him and voted him 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 459 

a want of confidence he called these political machines to his 
rescue, forgot his great respect for public opinion, and triumphed 
over the North as well as the South. All this time he claimed 
to be panoplied with the Constitution. Shall we account for 
such a character! Or shall we stand confounded before such an 
anomaly? If he was honest he was ignorant of the Constitu- 
tion. For no one who has sworn to execute the Constitution 
would honestly violate it. If he was ignorant of the Consti- 
tution, he had sworn to obey, he should have studied it in the 
light of the best authorities. As to the best authorities he 
could not have been mistaken, for the Constitution itself testi- 
fies that these are the Judges of the Supreme Court. If now 
he discarded the decision of these judges designated by the Con- 
stitution, and unanimously endorsed by the people for three- 
fourths of a century, and substituted, in lieu thereof, the opin- 
ion of less than 39 per cent of the voters, because they elected 
him President under the provision of that Constitution, what 
is to be thought of him? 

But whatever we may think of the ignorance of Lincoln 
as to the Constitution, and his oath of ofifice, there is at least 
one thing about which there can be no doubt, viz: That but for 
the vote of the border slave States in the autumn of 1862 the 
war would have been terminated by compromise; and that this 
vote was determined by their military possession and their com- 
plete subjection to military rule; and that this military rule 
was as unconstitutional and unjustifiable as was the assassination 
of President McKinley, or President Lincoln. 

Mr. Chas. Francis Adams, no stranger as a Northern histo- 
rian, in his memorial address on the Life, Character and Service 
of William H. Seward, says: "I must then affirm without hesi- 
tation, that in the history of our Government, down to this hour, 
no experiment so rash has ever been made as that of elevating 
to the head of affairs a man with so little previous prepara- 
tion for his task as Mr. Lincoln." These are plain words from 
a Northern soldier, a distinguished son of Massachusetts, a di- 
rect descendant of the two Adamses and the head of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society. 

May we not assume with absolute surety that had a Washing- 
ton, a Madison, a Jefferson, an Adams or any other of the illus- 



460 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

trious line of Presidents, been in office in 1861 there would 
have been no war ; and hence no sacrificing of a million of human 
lives on the altar of a false morality, a morality dominating an 
oath-bound Constitution, a mortality confessed to be that of a des- 
pot in these words of Morse's Abraham Lincoln, vol. II, pp. 
112-113. (American Statesmen) ? "History is crowded with tales 
of despots, but it tells of no despot who thought and decided 
with the tranquil taciturn independence, which was now mark- 
ing this President of the free American Republic." 

"Despot of the free American Republic!" How does it sound? 
Did this free American Republic clothe Lincoln with the powers 
of the despot? If so, when? Burke's definition of a despot is 
this : "An emperor, king or prince, invested with absolute power, 
or ruling without any control from men. Constitution, or laws. 
Hence in a general sense a tyrant." If Lincoln had proclaimed 
in advance of his election that, under any conditions whatever, he 
would rule if elected, "without control from men, or Constitu- 
tion, or laws," he would not have received a hundred votes in 
all this great American Republic. As we have already intimat- 
ed, had he declared in a frank manner when he took the oath 
of office, that he meant by "the enforcement of the laws" the 
subjugation of the South the North itself would have risen up 
in arms against him. 

But with the cat-like movement of approach and with the 
cunning that beguiled Mother Eve, he began his administration 
by quoting approvingly from his party platform these words : 
"We denounce as lawless the invasion by armed force of the 
soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, 
as among the gravest of crimes." 

These words fell from the lips of the President in his inau- 
gural address. Mark the words. "We denounce" and then what 
"We denounce" as lawless "the invasion." Note next what 
is meant by "lawless invasion," and read carefully "the lawless 
invasion of the soil of any State or Territory by armed force" 
Then search these words from Lincoln's own lips for a smgle 
exception when such an invasion would not be lawless. You 
will search in vain, but you will find these clear, strong, and ex- 
clusive words: "No mattter under what pretext" excluding all 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 461 

pretexts whatever, even that "Necessity" which he "supposed" 
would make "an unlawful act lawful." Mark his own denun- 
ciation of this "lawless invasion." It is in these well chosen 
words "as the gravest of crimes." 

Did Lincoln invade "the soil of any State by armed force?" 
Then he pronounced in advance this act of his "as lazvless." Did 
he comply with that all-exclusive promise? "No matter under 
what pretext?" If not, without contradiction, he denounced him- 
self as guilty of one of "the gravest of criminals." Shall Thorpe, 
shall Curtis, shall Herndon, shall Hapgood, and shall all that vast 
host of other Northern writers, too numerous to be named here, 
prove him innocent by mere empty phrases of praise, when he 
himself denounces his invasion of the soil of a State or Terri- 
tory by armed force as both "lawless" and "among the gravest 
of crimes?" It is to be noted that he did not even except "the 
invasion of the soil of a Territory" from his denunciation as 
"lawless" and most gravely "criminal." 

Doubtless, it was this plank in his party platform together 
with a divided Democracy, that won him his election in 1860. 
If we were to determine his "honesty" by these words, and his 
future words and future acts, what decision would we render? 
The one contradictes the other, as truth contradicts falsehood. 
He was the compound of contradictions. He even flatly, yet ad- 
roitly, contradicts himself of this very address, when he de- 
clared his purpose "to enforce the laws in the seceding States." 
Leading Republicans, as well as the many, many other distin- 
guished statesmen, declared that this policy put into execution 
"meant war and only war." And so it did. 

Without contradiction the North, and many of the South, 
regard him as an honest man. If an honest man, how shall we 
account for his contradictions in word and deed? Must it be 
on the ground of depraved human nature, or on the ground of an 
unbalanced mind on the subject of the institution of slavery? 
Or shall it be on both of these grounds, with a considerable 
quantity of ambition to be called the liberator of nearly 4,000,000 
slaves thrown in? On the 21st day of May, 1860, the New 
York Herald said of him, "He is a worshipper of John Brown 
without his pluck" ; and on the 23rd day of May the same paper 



462 RICHAEDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

called him "an abolitionist of the reddest dye, liable to be led 
to extreme lengths by other men. Without education or refine- 
ment, he will be the plaything of his party, whirled along the 
vortex of passion, if he should gain the control of the Govern- 
ment." 

The world regarded John Brown as insane on the subject of 
human slavery. To have been "the worshipper of John Brown" 
is to have been not far from the border line of the same species 
of insanity. And so the New York Herald thought when it 
said of him, "He voluntarily proclaimed in one of his speeches, 
he did mean to go to the banks of the Ohio, and throw missiles 
into Kentucky to disturb them in their institutions." 

On the 21st day of May the Boston Post said of him : "He 
can only be the tool of the fanatical host he will lead on" ; and 
three days later the Philadelphia Evening Journal said of him : 
"He even exceeded Seward in the extravagance of his views 
respecting the slavery question." 

From these few quotations, samples of the great number of 
Northern editorials along the same line, we may form some 
estimate of the character of Lincoln, whether we consider him 
from the standpoint of human depravity, a weakness common 
to us all, or from the standpoint of abolitionism, standing on 
this subject with that extreme class of abolitionists known as 
John Brownism. With "the facts all in" it still is a very difficult 
question to determine whether he was influenced more by the 
weakness of his human nature, or by his burning madness on 
the subject of human slavery. With it all, neither he, nor John 
Brown, nor the average abolitionist knew any more about the 
character of the institution of slavery in the South than did the 
Esquimaux in the icy North. It can be said with certainty that 
the average slaves of the South lived sumptuously in comparison 
with the average laboring classes in the North. It is also pos- 
sible to say with certainty that 99 negro children out of 100 had 
an easier and happier life than did Abraham Lincoln in his 
childhood. The institution of slavery in the South was the 
mildest institution of the kind the world has ever seen. It was 
a family institution, in which the negroes took pride equally 
with the whites. Disagreeable and unreasonable families were 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 463 

exceptions, just as they are in the North and South of to-day. 
But Lincoln's conception of this elevating and Christianizing 
Southern institution, like that of his greatly admired friend, 
John Brown, was that of slavery among savages. But slav- 
ery in the midst of the most splendid specimens of Christian 
manhood and Christian womanhood was an institution of no 
mean character, but one in which the noble virtues were taught, 
and upon which peace and contentment smiled. 

A SKETCH OF LINCOLN'S LIFE. 

We have had much to say about Lincoln and his peculiarities. 
A few authentic facts from his biographers may not be out of 
order here. They will tend to reveal the man and account in 
part, at least, for his disregard of the Constitution. As we have 
seen, he never did treat the Constitution as the product of the 
States but simply as the work of individuals in the interest of 
individuals, and not States in the interest of States. 

His family came from England in 1637. His grandfather, 
Abraham Linckom, moved from Virginia to Kentucky in 1789, 
following in the wake of Daniel Boone. His youngest son, Tom 
Linckern, was the father of our Abraham Lincoln. The spelling 
of the name took its present form at some time later in Illinois. 

"Tom Linckern (Lincoln) was a cabinet maker, but was too 
lazy to make much use of it. He was entirely illiterate, but 
he had social qualities, among them the ability to tell the stories 
picked up in a vagrant life. He could not write his name till 
his first wife taught him to scrawl it, the farthest reach of educa- 
tion he ever acquired 

"Tom was taken with spasms of religion, belonging part of 
the time to no denominations, and then again to several in suc- 
cession, none of which affected the truth of the statement of his 
relative, John Hanks : 'Happiness was the end with him.' 

"On June 12, 1806, near Beachland, in Washington County, 
Kentucky, Thomas married Nancy Hanks, daughter of Joseph 
Hanks, of EHzabethtown, in whose shop he had learned his trade. 
vShe is said to have been melancholy, sensative. brooding, frail 
with native refinement, the rudiments of an education and deli- 
cate instincts which failed to make his marriage an ideal 

one 



464 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, 
February 12, 1809." 

This infant spent his life in what was called a camp, because 

it was made of poles Life on the frontier was not luxurious 

and little Abraham's father was not the most enterprising of 

settlers He was but four when his father, who spent his 

life in moving, went on to another farm, 15 miles to the north- 
east, on Knob Creek. In 1816 when Abraham was seven, Tom 
took another change, this time sampling Indiana. He proceeded 
on horseback, aided by one wagon, to a new farm near Little 
Pigeon Creek, about 15 miles North of the Ohio river and one 

and one-half east of Gentryville, in Spencer County So 

primitive was the country, that on the journey Tom was in places 
compelled to cut his way through forests. When he reached his 

destination he built a camp. This camp was one of the 

proudest achievements of Tom's history. It was half-faced 
which signifies that it was a shed of poles, entirely open on one 
side, roughly protecting the wife and two small children from 
the weather in the other three directions. In this shed, winter 
and summer, the family lived a whole year, while Tom and Abe 
cleared a little patch for corn, and Tom built a permanent dwell- 
ing. Into this mansion he moved before it was half completed, 
and found it so attractive that he left it for a year or two with- 
out doors, windows or floors. For chairs there were three- 
legged stools ; the bedstead was made of poles stuck in between 

the logs in the angle of the cabin The bedclothes were 

skins. When Abe went to bed, however, it was not in this, the 
only room in the cabin, but in the loft on a bunch of leaves which 
he reached by climbing a ladder, made of wooden pegs driven 
into the logs. There was a dining table, consisting of a large, 
hewed log standing on four legs, and the nourishment was pre- 
pared and served by Mrs. Linckern with the aid of a pot, a 
kettle, a skillet, and a few tin and pewter dishes. 

"The woods were full of malaria, which in 1818, in 

October, took the life of Nancy Hanks I^incoln. Tom made a 
coffin of green lumber, cut with a whip-saw and, taking his 
children and a handful of Gentryville friends, buried her. 

"It is probable, however, that when Abraham Lincoln, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 465 

in after years spoke of his 'angel of a mother/ or his 'sainted 
mother,' it was not of this frail woman that he thought, but of 
the stronger and more decisive person with whom his father 
filled her place. Tom had wished to marry Sarah Bush when 
he was a bachelor, but Sarah was not impressed by his talents 
and chose a man named Johnson. A very few months after Nancy 
died, Tom started for Kentucky, where his old friend was the 
widowed mother of three children. To her he offered himself 
again, alleging reformed habits and an improved worldly con- 
dition. On these representations she took him, and soon after 
Abraham and his sister saw their cabin approached by the most 
prosperous woman who had ever entered their lives. In the 
wagon which carried her goods were furniture, cooking utensils, 
and bedding of a magnificence and luxury beyond their ex- 
perience. Not too much cast down by the contrast between her 
husband's story and his cabin, she took both him and it in hand. 
She forced him to put in doors and floor, perhaps windows, 
which consisted of greased paper over a hole, and she taught 
the children some of the order and habits of civilization." (Ab- 
raham Lincoln, the Man of the People — Hapgood pp. 4-9). 

"It was a superstitious community and to the very day of his 
death Linckern never failed to believe in supernatural portents. 
If a dog ran directly across the hunter's path, bad luck would 
follow unless the little fingers were hooked together and vig- 
orously pulled as long as the dog remained in sight ; charmed 
twigs pointed to springs and buried treasure ; faith doctors with 
their mysterious ceremonies wrought cures. If a bird alighted 
in the window, one of the family would die; a horse breathing 

on a child gave whooping cough If a fence was not made 

in the light of the moon it would sink ; and Friday was fatal 
to every enterprise." (Hapgood p. 15). 

When Lincoln was nearly twenty-one years of age, in March, 
1830, his father moved to Macon County, Illinois, and settled 
about ten miles west of Decatur. 

In 1822, when Lincoln was 13, an abolition newspaper was 
started about 100 miles from the village, and during his whole 
boyhood and youth there was plenty to lead his mind, at least 
occasionall.Y. onto the topic. 



466 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The talkative youth presented a pictorial appearance in coat, 
trousers and moccasins of tanned deer hide." (Hapgood p. 16). 

Under the head of "Beginnings of Politics and Love," Mr. 
Hapgood says : 

"In the summer, 1833, he went to Springfield to assist John 

Calhoun, the county surveyor His work left him time to 

read Paine, Volney, and Voltaire, according to Herndon, who 
makes him out quite an argumentative disbeliever. He was 
evidently very popular with his neighbors 

"In 1835 he returned to New Salem, found Ann Rutledge, the 
girl of the tavern, was in trouble. Her fiance had gone away 

about a year before, and Ann had heard disquieting rumors 

As months passed on and Ann received no letters she told her 
secret, and all her friends met the story with convincing sceptic- 
ism. 

"Lincoln asked the girl to be his wife. She consented in the 
Spring to marry him when another .vear had enabled her to have 
an autumn and winter season in Jacksonville academy, and had 
helped him to make a further start in life. 

"But Ann never reached the academy. As the spring and 
summer passed her memories haunted her. What she felt about 
Lincoln we do not know. McNair (her fiance) was on her con- 
science. Had she wronged him? Was he still faithful? Had 
she every right to love him in spite of silence? She fell so ill 

that Lincoln was kept from her presence Her death came 

August 25, 1835. 

"Lincoln always tending toward fits of gloom, had his mind 
almost unsettled by the blow. For the sadness that marked 
his face through life many reasons have been given by those who 
know him best. One of his most intelligent friends believed that 
constitpation was the real cause. Others find it inherited from 
his unhappy mother. Others tell of the gloom of the pioneer life, 
the desert spaces, the malaria, the loneliness, the absence of 
opportunity for a man who feels his powers ready within him. 
Whatever the cause, almost all, who knew Lincoln well, believed 
that the death of Ann Rutledge was an aggravation of the morbid 

tendency Two months later McNair returned with proof 

of his honesty and gave a final touch to the pioneer tragedy. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 467 

Lincoln in one fashion or another, for several years loved rather 
readily, seeming in a mood to offer his hand and heart when- 
ever a sympathetic relation was established, but in case of Ami 
alone was the feeling deep. He and his friends feared for his 
sanity. As long as five or six years, he consulted D'r. Drake, 
a celebrated Cincinnati doctor, by letter, but the physician re- 
fused to give an opinion without a personal interview, and 
Lincoln was unable to make the trip. To a fellow member of the 
Legislature within two years after the death, the representative 
from Sangamon said that although he was alone, that he no longer 
dared to carry a pocket-knife in spite of his old time love for 
whittling. After the first election to the presidency, he answered 
his old friend, Isaac Colgate, who asked if it was true he ran 
a little wild about the Rutledge matter: *I really did. I ran 
off the track. It was my first. I loved the woman dearly. She 
was a handsome girl : vrould have made a good loving wife : 
was natural and quite intellectual, though not highly educated. 
I did honestly and truly love the girl, and think often of her 
now.' There was a popular belief that in all weather he used 
to sit for hours alone on her grave 

"Apparently it was this experience nxore than any other which 

fixed the habit of reciting mournful verse One of them 

has been made famous as his favorite, the poem which he re- 
cited for some thirty years at every opportunity. Part of it is: 
"'Oh! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning-, a break of the wave, 
He passeth from Ufe to his rest in the grave.' 

"This brand of melancholy poetical reflection became such a 
large settled part of Lincoln's life that it is, next to his wit, 

perhaps his most famous personal trait 

, "The melancholy which increased after Ann Rutledge's death, 
however, is but one side of as enigmatical a character as is 
known in history. If the great President is ever to be under- 
stood as a man, it must be by reconciling wonderful sanity with 
vagaries almost insane, and it is the wilder and queerer side of 
his nature that comes to the front for several years after Ann's 
death 



468 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"During- this }'ear, Lincoln was again candidate for the Leg- 

latnre He was elected. The three things he proved were 

that he was a very adroit politician, that he shared a financial 
insanity which just then pervaded the State, and that he had 
convictions on slavery." 

In the session of the Legislature in 1837-38, the following 
resolutions passed almost unanimously, the protest being signed 
with but two names : 

"Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois : 
That we highly disapprove of the formation of Abolition socie- 
ties and of the doctrines promulgated by them : 

"That the right of property in slaves is sacred to the slave- 
holding States by the Federal Constitution, and that they cannot 
be deprived of that right without their consent ; 

"That the General Government cannot abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia against the consent of the citizens of said 
District without a manifest breach of good faith ; 

"That the Governor be requested to transmit to the States of 
Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, and Connecticut a 
copy of the foregoing report and resolutions."" (Hapgood p. 58). 

These resolutions endorsing in imqualified terms the position 
of the South in the Sixties are not quoted so much for that reason 
as to show the influence of Abolition literature on his mind. 
When he was but 13 years of age, in 1823, he was called "the 
talkative youth" on the subject of abolition, "presenting a pic- 
torial appearance in coat, trousers and moccasins of tanned deer 
hide." 

The tvv'o names signed in protest to these resolutions were 
A. Lincoln and Dan Stone. Note with what adroitnf ss they word 
their protest : 

"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on 
both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abo- 
lition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils. 

"They believe that the Congress of the United vStates has no 
power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution 
of slavery within the different States. 

"They believe that the Congress of the United States has the 
power imder the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District 



EICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH -169 

of Columbia, but tliat the power ought not to be exercised unless 
at the request of the people of the District. 

Dan Stone, 
A, Lincoln." 

As We t'.re presenting Lincoln's peculiarities for a purpose we 
further quote Hapgood : 

"In 1839 Mary Todd, aged twenty-one, came to her sister's 
house in Springfield, and speedily became popular with that city's 
swains, among them Lincoln, to whom she became engaged 

"One evening, according to Herndon, who was a clerk in 
Speed's store, Lincoln read Speed a letter to Miss Todd, telling 
her he did not love her enough to marry her and asked Speed 
to deliver it. Speed, who was the most intimate friend of Lin- 
coln, threw it into the fire, and said the message ought to be 
deliverd orally. Lincoln obeyed, but when Mary burst into tears 
and said something about the deceiver being deceived, her fiance 
wept also, caught her in his arms, kissed her and allowed things 
to drift on towards the marriage, which was fixed for January 
1, 1841. According to Herndon's story, which has been doubted, 
but not essentially shaken, Lincoln failed to appear when all 
preparations had been made, but was found at daybreak in so 
distraught a state that friends watched over him and kept him 
from all knives, razors, and other weapons with which he might 
have ended his troubles. One story is that he had just fallen 
in love with Miss Matilda Edwards. At any rate three weeks 
later he wrote to his partner Stuart : 

" 'I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel 
was equally distributed to the whole human family, there would 
not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be 
better I cannot tell ; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain 
as I am is impossible. I must die or be better it appears to 

me I fear I shall be unable to attend any business here, 

and a change of scene might help me. If I could be myself, 
I would rather remain at home with Judge Logan. I can write 
no more.' 

■'Herndon tells of a few lines sent by Lincoln at this period 
to the Sangamon Journal under the title of 'Suicide,' and later 
cut out of the files. According to Herndon also. Miss Todd re- 



470 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

leased her fiance from his engagement by a letter a few days 
after the incidents of what Lincoln called 'that fatal first of 
January, 1841.' 

"On October 5, he wrote to Speed : — 'I want to ask you a 
close question — Are you now in feeling, as well as in judgment, 
glad you are married as you are? From anybody but me this 
would be an impertinent question, not to be tolerated ; but I 
know you will pardon me. Please answer it quickly, as I am 
impatient to know.' 

"He was contemplating marriage again. Just how long he 
had been wavering we do not know. During the summer friends 
had brought the former fiances together and they immediately 
saw much of each other 

"On the morning of November 4, 1842, Lincoln went to the 
room, of James H. fathering and asked him to be his best man 
at a marriage, not yet announced, but to be celebrated that night. 
Miss Todd at the same time asked of a friend a similar favor. 
The license was obtained, a minister summoned, and in the pres- 
ence of a few friends the deed was done. While the groom was 
dressing at Butler's home, a small Butler boy asked him where 

he was going. 'To hell, I suppose," was the reply Thus in 

a life containing more mystery than that of any equally celebrated 
modern life a mysterious wedding was accomplished." (Hap- 
good p. 85). 

Lincoln's InfidcUty. 

"Lincoln believed, as is shown b\' his correspondence, that his 
expected defeat by Edward H. Baker was due largely to his 
being suspected of deism. Some years earlier, full of Volney's 
'Ruins' and Paine's 'Age of Reason,' he had prepared an ex- 
tended argument against the inspiration of the Bible, which one 

of his cautious friends deposited in the stove He once asked 

Herndon to erase the word 'God' from the draft of a speech 
because it suggested the existence of a more personal power 
than Lincoln believed in. He did not believe in eternal punish- 
ment and never joined a church. During his presidency a con- 
vention of preachers asked him to recommend to Congress an 
amendment to the Constitution recognizing the existence of God, 
and tlie first draft of his message called attention to the subject. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 471 

but he struck out the clause in correcting the proof. His creed, 
as far as it can be gathered, seems to have been very much like 
Hamlet's, and he was fond of quoting, 'there's a divinity that 
shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will.' From the days 
when he imbibed a belief in luck and omens from his environ- 
ment to the time when he took his own son Robert to Terre 
Haute to be cured by a mad-stone of the bite of a dog, down 
to the war when he forbade a movement on Sunday because 
Bull Run was bought on the Sabbath, he was still foreseeing 
good and evil fortune, piivate and public. Superstition, faith 
and doubt were inextricably mixed up in him." He also left 
God out of his emancipation proclamation till Chase reminded 
him of it, and then Vv:ore the concluding paragraph for him. 

"Infidelity was again urged the next time he was a candidate.'' 
(Hapgood p. 89). 

"One observer says of him: As for Lincoln, he had three 
different moods, if I may so express myself: first, a business 
mood, when he gave strict and close attention to business ; sec- 
ond, his melancholy moods, when his whole nature was immersed 
in Cimmerian darkness : third, his don't-care-whether-school- 
keeps-or-not mood." (Hapgood). 

"Mr. Whitney says: 'At Danville, the county seat of Ver- 
milon County, the Judge and Lincoln and I used to occupy the 
ladies' parlor of the old McCormick House, changed to a bed- 
room during Court. Lincoln and I occupied a bed jointly 

One morning I was awakened early, before daylight, by my 
companion sitting up in bed, his figure dimly visible by the 
ghostly firelight, and talking the wildest and most incoherent 
nonsense all to himself. A stranger to Lincoln would have sup- 
posed he had suddenly gone insane. Of course I knew Lincoln 
and his idioyncrasies, and felt no alarm, so I listened and laughed. 
After he had gone on in this way for some minutes, while I was 
awake, and I know not how long before I was awake, he sprang 
out of bed, hurriedly washed, and jumped into his clothes, put 
som,e wood on the fire, and then sat in front of it, moodily, 
dejectedly, in a most sombre and gloomy spell, till the breakfast 
bell rang, when he started as if from a sleep and went to break- 
fast with us. (Hapgood p. 118). 



472 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"Shortly after his election Lincoln had a vision, which was 
thus related by him to Noah Brooks: 

" 'It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had 
been coming in thick and fast all day, and there had been a 
great 'hurrah boys !' so that I was well tired out, and went home 
to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. 
Opposite where 1 lay was a bureau, with a swinging glass upon 
it' — and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the 
position — 'and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected, nearly 
at full length ; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and 
distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three 
inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps 
startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion 
vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time — ^plainer 
if possible than before, and I noticed that one of ihe faces was 
a little paler, say five shades, than the other. I got up and the 
thing melted away, and I went off. and in the excitement of the 
hour, forgot all about it — nearly, but not quite, for the thing 
would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang, as 
though something uncomfortable had happened. Later in the 
day, I told my wife about it, and a few days later I tried the 
experiment again, when fwith a laugh) sure enough the thing 
came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back 
after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to 
my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it 
was a sign that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and 
that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should 
not see life through the last term." (Hapgood p. 169). 

"While we were traveling in anti-railway days," says Henry 
C. Whitney, "on the circuit and would stop at a farm house for 
dinner, Lincoln would improve the leisure in hunting up some 
farming implements, machine, or tool, and he would carefully 
examine it all over, first generally and then critically; he would 
sight it to determine if it was straight or warped; if he could 
make a practical test of it he would do that; he would turn it 
over or around and stoop down, or lie down, if necessary, to 
look under it; he would examine closely, then stand off and ex- 
amine it at a little distance ; he would shake it, lift it, roll it about, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 473 

up-end it, overset it, and thus ascertain every quality and utility 
which was in it, so far as acute and patient investigation could 
do it. (Hapgood pp. 113-114). 

Let it be understood that Lincoln had no special interest in 
the tool he was thus critically and minutely examining. Let it 
also be remembered it was his usual practice under similar cir- 
cumstances. 

"Insanity of Genius." 

Mr. J. F. Nesbit in the preface of the first edition of ''Insanity 
of Genius" says: 

"Men of genius have exercised a powerful influence in the 
world since history began. As chiefs and warriors among sav- 
age tribes, as men of letters, art or science, statesmen or mili- 
tary commanders in civilized communities, they win the admira- 
tion of their fellows without furnishing in their own lives any 
conclusive indication of the means by which their success is 
achieved. They strike out a path for themselves, and seem to 
owe little or nothing to help or example. Genius has never been 
the monopoly of any class or system. It is as likely to manifest 
itself in the peasant as in the peer; and, indeed, in any list that 
might be drawn up of the great men of the world, examples 
would be found of intellectual capacity asserting itself in all 
conditions of life, and quite independently of the much vaunted 
advantages of education. By what fatality a small number of 
individuals thus find themselves born to pre-eminence in every 
successive generation — carrying, so to speak, the marshal's baten 
in their knapsacks — is one of the most interesting questions that 
can engage the human mind, and many, accordingly, have been 
the peculiarlities indulged in with regard to the nature and origin 
of the gifts which lift the favored few above the general level 
of their species. 

"For over two thousand years some subtle relationship has 
been thought to exist between genius and insanity. Aristotle noted 
how often eminent men displayed morbid symptoms of mind, 
Dryden borrowed from Seneca the suggestion of his well- 
known lines as to great wit and madness being near allied 

In modern times the connection of genius with insanity has been 



474 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

scientifically insisted upon By Lent, Moreau (de Tours) Lam- 

broso, and one or two more recent writers 

"In 1859 Moreau laid down the principle, based upon a num- 
ber of rather doubtful examples, that genius was essentially a 
nervose, or nerve, affection, his contention being that originality 
of thought and quickness or preponderance of intellectural fac- 
ulties were originally much the same thing as madness and idiocy. 
A few years later Lombroso, in Italy, supported this nervosite 
theory, quoting some further examples of insanity in distinguished 
men, or their near relatives, but admitting that many others had 
shown no trace of mental aberration." 

Maudley says : "There is a disorder of mind in which with- 
out illusion, delusion, or hallucination, the symptoms are mainly 
exhibited in perversion of those mental faculties which are usually 
called the active or moral powers, the feelings, affections, tempers, 
habits, and conduct. The affective life of the individual is pro- 
foundly deranged, and his derangement shows itself in what he 
feels, desires and does. He has no capacity of true moral feeling; 
all his desires and impulses to which he yields without checks, 
are egotistic; his conduct appears to be governed by immoral 
motirc'es which are cherished and obeyed without any evident 
desire to resist them. There is an amazing moral insensibility. 
The intelligence is often acute enough, being not affected other- 
wise than in being tainted by feelings under the influence of which 
the persons think and act; indeed they often display extraordinary 
ingenuity in explaining, excusing and justifying their behavior, 
exaggeratiing this, ignoring that, and so coloring the zvhole as to 
make themselves appear the victims of misrepresentation and 
persecution. Their mental resources seem to be greater some- 
times than when they were well, and they reason most acutely, 
apparently because all their intellectural faculties are applied in 
the justification of their selfish desires." (Maudley — Respon- 
sibility in Mental Diseases pp. 184-5). 

"Among English writers who have become actually insane, 
or who had hallucinations and idiosyncrasies, may be mentioned 
Swift, Johnson, Cowper, Southey, Shelley, Byron, Campbell, 
Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, Walter Savage Landor, and Edgar 
Allen Poe, with whom may be coupled among foreign writers, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 475 

Rousseau, Pascal, Chateaubriand, Tasso, Pellico, and Alfieri." 

Nesbit says of Swift "he has been harshly judged by those 
who regard genius and wisdom interchangeable terms. There 
was certainly much excentricity, and even cruelty in his conduct, 
especially in his treatment of two helpless women, known as 
Stella and Vanessa, to whom he held out the delusion of mar- 
riage, but he was not quite responsible for his actions." Wilde, 
in reference to his treatment of these two women, said, "he was 
constitutionally incapable of any passion stronger than friend- 
ship." All his eccentricities were symptoms of brain disease. 

"From his father Johnson inherited 'a vile melancholy' which, 
to borrw his own words, made him 'mad all his life, or at 

least, not sober.' At twenty Johnson was in a state of 

'perpetual irritation, fretfulness, impatience, gloom and despair.' 

From hypochondria he was never afterwards free The 

dread of insanity haunted Johnson as it did Swift, and he must 
sometimes have been on the very brink of mental derangement. 
Upon his other disorders hallucinations of hearing supervened. 
'One day at Oxford,' says Boswell, 'as he was turning the key 
of his chamber he heard his mother distinctly call, 'Sam.' Al- 
though she was then at Litchfield.' 

"At twenty-one when Cowper was studying for the bar he 
fell into melancholia. 'Day and night,' he says in his auto- 
biographical notes, 'I was upon the rack, lying down in horror 

and rising up in despair This state of mind continued near 

a twelvemonth, when having experienced the inefficacy of all 
human means, I at length betook myself to God in prayer !' 
Throughout his life Cowper's hallucinations had a strong reli- 
gious coloring. The long fits of depression referred to ended 
as suddenly as it began. He was walking one day on the cliffs 
at Southampton. 'On a sudden," he says, 'as if another sun 
had been kindled at the instant in the heavens on purpose to 
dispel my sorrow and vexation of spirit, I felt the weight of all 
my misery taken ofif me. My heart became light and joyful in 
a moment.' 

"Such lightning-like changes are frequent in insanity, and 
however subtle they may seem, all are known to be dependent 
upon strictly physical conditions. In another year Cowper's mel- 



476 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ancholia returned with redoubled force, inspiring him, to use his 
own words, with the 'dark helhsh purpose of murder.' His at- 
tempts at suicide are detailed with curious minuteness in his 
autobiographical sketches." (Sputhey's Life of Cowper). 

"The immediate progenitors of Shelly were eccentric. His 

grandfather Bysshe Shellev, had a melancholy temperament 

Similar characterics appeared in Timothy Shelly, the poet's 
father. From boyhood Shelley was of a peculiar disposition. At 
Eton he was known as 'Mad Shelley.' 

"There is no doubt that Shelley had actual hallucinations ; 
while staying in Keswick, he was alarmed one morning by a 
noise outside the cottage he occupied. He went to the door, 
opened it, and instantly received a blow which struck him to 
the ground where he lay for awhile unconscious. This was 
Sbellv's account of the afifair, but the neighbors were skeptical 
as to his supposed adventures, and believed him to be the victim 

of delusion If the Keswick hallucination is a doubtful one, 

there is proof of his having had visions in Italy, 'x^fter tea' 
wrote Williams shortly before he and Shelley were drowned 
in the Bay of Spezzia, Shelley complained of being unusually 
nervous, and, stopping short he grasped me by the arm, and 
stared steadfastly at the white surf that broke upon the beach 
under his feet. Observing him sensibly afifected, I demanded of 
him if he were in pain, but he only answered by saying, 'There 
it is again, there!' He recovered after some time, and declared 
that he saw, as plainly as he then saw me, a child rise from 
the sea, and clap its hands as in joy, smiling at him. This was 
a trance that it required much reasoning and philosophy to 
awaken him from, so forcibly had the vision operated on his 
mind. Again it is related by Medwin on Byron's authority that 
Shelly thought he met one day on the terrace near his Italian 
r esiden ce a figure wrapped in a mantle, which lifted up the hood 
of its cloak and revealed the phantom of himself, saying 'Siete 
Soddesfatto?' (Are you satisfied?). Mary Shelley also mentions 
this vision, saying that Shelley often saw such figures when ill. 
Seeing a special image of one's self is a form of hallucination 
that occurs among the apoplectic and the insane; and it is often 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 477 

also during the delirium of fever. Goethe experienced it in open 
day as well as Shelley 

"As a child Campbell was precocious ; he wrote verses at ten, 
Vk'as imaginative, sensitive and passionately fond of music. At 
eighteen he was attacked by melancholia, and Prof. Pillans, who 
knew him a year or two later, wrote as follows to a friend : 
'He accompanied me to my father's in the lowest state of de- 
pression, so much so that my father taunted me with bringing 

to his house a man who seemed to be bordering on insanity 

At the height of his reputation Campbell showed signs of insanity, 
believing that he was ruined, for example, while he was really 
in the most prosperous circumstances.' " 

Of Goldsmith Nesbit says : "There was a strong tincture of 
ne'er-do-wellism in his character, and such foolish moralizing 
on his account has been indulged in by biographers, who see 
in him only the man of genius condemned to live from hand to 

mouth, and to write immortal works in a garret According 

to his sister, he v/as "subject to most particular humors, with 
the most unaccotmtable alternations of gaiety and gloom.' This 
mental condition explains his boyish freak of running away 
from home for six weeks, and also his prolonged vagabondage 
on the Continent. Boswell says 'Goldsmith disputed his way 
through Europe.' He died of some nervous afifection." 

Of Charles Lamb Nesbit writes : "He appears to have owed 
his political literarv capacity to a converging heredity of brain 
and nerve disease. His father, who occupied the humble posi- 
tion of servant in Lincoln's Inn, wrote verses, and about his 
fiftieth year lapsed into a state of imbecility ; his mother became 
paralized. Mary, sister, became subject to fits of insanity, in 
one of which she stabbed her invalid mother to the heart, and 
killed her. Charles Lamb was himself confined for six weeks 
in a madhouse about his twentieth year — -the period at which he 
wrote most of his sonnets 

"In his defiance of all authority, his reckless impulse, his fierce 
outburst of temper, his swift changes of mood, his general 
•singularities which the most indulgent of biographers do not 
attempt to conceal. Walter Savage Lander would most certainly 
have been entitled to be classed as a victim of the 'insane tempera- 



478 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ment' even had his closing years been unmarked by any of the 

more unmistakable characteristics of insanity His laugh is 

historical ; it must have surpassed in volume even that of Shel- 
ley and Byron. 'Higher and higher,' says Forster, in describing 
it, 'went peal after peal until regions of sound were reached 

very far beyond the ordinary lungs.' In public and private 

affairs his plan of proceeding was on the eccentric principle of 
differing as widely as he could from everybody else 

"The close of his life was spent in Italy, where according 
to a letter of Browning's, he required to have some one always 
at home to explain his irritations and hallucinations as they 

arose His death at <S9 was brought about by his abstaining 

for three weeks from food, whether as the result of weakness 
or of some hallucination is unknown. 

"Thomas Chatterton, the most precocious literary genius the 
world has ever seen, was the offspring of a 'drunken wild-eyed 
choir singer, who died before his marvelous son was born ; and 
of a woman who was long afiflicted with a nervous disease,' 
probably palsy. His sister, a Mrs. Newton, had an attack of 
insanity. The boy's 'temper had in it something quite unusual 
in one so young. Generally very sullen and silent, he was liable 
to sudden and unaccountable fits of weeping, as well as to violent 

fits of rage.' In his 18th year he committed suicide Before 

his suicide, however, his landlady 'did not think him to be quite 
right in his mind.' He showed a growing restlessness and 
'sudden fits of vacancy or silence that came upon him, sometimes 
while he was talking rapidly.' " 

Mason says. "He would often look steadfastly in a person's 
face without speaking or seeming to see the person for a quarter 
of an hour or more till it was quite pitiful. Young as he was, 
the boy had acquired a name for imimorality in his native town 
of Bristol. 

Nesbit says "Jean Jacques Rousseau was a melancholy tem- 
perament, and more than once had hallucinations of persecutions. 
(Moreau). There seems to have been insanity on his father's 
side, a cousin of the same name of Rousseau having been afflicted 

with that disorder Corancez. a friend of Jean Jacques, 

has left on record some curious details as to the philosopher's 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 479 

mental condition. Rousseau lived under the constant belief that 
his life was being conspired against; and in the most trifling 

of circumstances he saw a confirmation of his suspicions 

Corancez discovered Rousseau on several occasions in which his 
features wore a strange and terrifying expression." 

Nesbit says "Quite on the border land of genius and insanity 

stands William Blake, the contemporary of Charles Lamb 

He was mioodv and mystical of hearing; celestial voices seemed 
to call him. He took to engraving as a means of livelihood, but 
he wrote poetry copiously, turning out betwen his twelfth and 
fifteenth year no fewer than seventy pages of verse. By-and-by 
hallucinations of sight beset him. Historical figures of poets, 
heroes and princes swarmed around him. These he mistook for 
reality. He would frequently sketch their figures as he saw 
them. 

"As Cunningham rightly observes, 'Mad Blake always dealt 
with such visionary matters, he would have no claim to be a 
man of genius, some of whose works are worthy of any age 
or nation. 

"Chateaubriand belonged to a mad family and was himself 

of a melancholy temperament The illustrious author of the 

Memories d'Outre Fambe was haunted by ideas of suicide. As 
he himself relates he one day loaded a fowling-piece, sought a 
retired place, and tried to fire the weapon into his mouth : it 
failed to go oflf, and he was disturbed before he could carry 
out his intention. This occurred in his youth, but his suicide 
ideas never quitted him. 'My great defect,' he writes in the 
work alx)ve mentioned, 'is ennui, a distaste for everything and a 
perpetual doubt.' 

"Not a few other writers of eminence have shown symptoms 
of insanity. George Sand was, in her youth, profoundly melan- 
cholic, and felt tempted to commit suicide. 'This temptation,' 
she writes, 'was sometimes so strong, so sudden, so strange, 
that it can only be described as a species of insanity. It partook 
of the character of a monomania.' The sight of water, of a 
precipice, of a loaded pistol, or of bottles containing poison, was 
suflficient to arouse suicide ideas in her mind. 

"Tasso's homicidal mania and other eccentricities caused him 



480 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

for a time to be confined as a lunatic. He saw apparitions,, 
sometimes glorious, as when the Virgin appeared to him in crim- 
son vapor ; sometimes hellish and impish ; he heard aerial laugh- 
ter, hissing and the ringing of bells. 

"Silvo Pellico had hallucinations of sight, hearing and touch. 
The stillness of his prison cell was broken by groans and laughter, 
while spirit hands seemed to pluck him by the garments 

"Both Tannahill and Lenan committed suicide. The latter, 
who ranks high as a poet in Germany, was, from his boyhood, 
of a restless and extravagant disposition His deep melan- 
cholia was followed by a stroke of paraysis 

"Holderlin's insanity lasted him nearly forty years. 

"Edgar Allen Poe, although never placed under treatment, 
was undoubtedly an insane subject. More than once he attempted 
or threatened suicide under delusions of persecutions 

"Alfieri had fits of extreme exaltation and melancholy, was 
eccentric, and more than once attempted suicide. 

"The Roman Poet, Lucretius, suffered from intermittent 
mania, in the lucid moments of which he wrote his great work, 
'Do Rerum Nature.' At 44 years of age he is said to have com- 
mitted suicide." 

Rush, on the "Diseases of the Mind," says, "Insane patients 
of little or no education astonished Lombrozo by the depth of 
their remarks upon philosophical and scientific subjects. One, 
a tailor, named Farino. placed in confinement for killing the 
mother of the girl with whom he believed himself in love, wrote 
a long and detailed, and extremely graphical account of the 

crime He was without the smallest literary culture. 

Neverthless. his memoir, quoted in full by Lorenzo, is a curious 
example of hallucination existing side bv side with perfect rea- 
soning powers, and conscientiousness of right and wrong, and 
is marked not only by clearness of propriety, and correctness 
of memory, for the smallest events of by-gone years, but even 
eloquence of style. His reminiscences, in fact, exhibit a much 
greater variety and accuracy than would those of an ordinary 
person of sound mind." 

"Sidney Smith's father was eccentric to the point of insanity. 
He was a man of considerable ability, endowed with great force 



KICHAKDSON'8 DKFENSE OK THE SOUTH 481 

of character, and a keen sense of humor He seems to have 

had a mania for doing rash and unaccountable things. One of 
these unaccountable things was to leave a newly-wedded wife 
at the church door and rush oft to America, returning to her 
only after some years." 

Abraham Lincoln was the son of an eccentric father, and of 
"a melancholy, sensitive, brooding, and pale mother." As a boy 
he was precocious and possessed a wonderful memory. He could 
repeat, verbatim, on Monday the sermon of Sunday, At the 
age of thirteen he manifested a mania for the principles of 
Abolitionism. At fourteen he was famous as "the talkative boy."' 
"Always tending towards fits of gloom," the death of his father, 
"almost unsettled his mind." "He and his friends feared for his 
sanity." "During his fits of melancholy he was inclined to sui- 
cide, and no longer dared to carry a pocket knife in spite of hi* 
old time love for whittling." "There was a popular belief that 
in all weathers he used to sit for hours on her (his fiance's) 
grave." "He had a fixed habit of reciting mournful verses." 
With "vagaries, almost insane," he was "the shrewdest of poli- 
ticians." Like Sidney Smith he was "eccentric almost to the- 
point of insanity ;" like him also "he had a keen sense of humor ;"" 
and like him "he had a mania for doing rash and unaccountable 
things." In his second love affair, when all the preparations for 
the marriage had been made "he failed to appear," and at dajr 
break was found in so distraught a state that friends watched over 
him, and kept from him all knives and razors and other weapons 
with which he might have ended his life. He said of himself, 
"I am the most miserable man living, li what I feel were equally 
distributed to the whole human race there would not be a cheerful 
face on earth." An observer said of him, "In his melancholy 
moods his whole nature was immersed in Cimmerian darkness."" 

Whitney found him "talking the wildest and most incoherent 
nonsense all to himself," and said, in speaking of it, "A stranger 
would have supposed Lincoln had suddenly gone insane," but 
he "knew his idiosyncrasies and felt no alarm." Like Rousseau 
"his features wore a strange and terrifying expression." 

Like Shelly, Lincoln had actual hallucinations. Shelly at one 
time saw a smiling child rise above the sea foam and "clap its 



4«2 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

hands." At another time he met a figure wrapped in a mantle. 
On lifting the cloak he revealed the phantom of himself. In 
1860, just after his election, Lincoln saw "Two separate and 
distinct images of himself, the tip of the nose of one being 
about three inches from the tip of the other." Disturbed and 
alarmed he arose. "He looked in the glass, but the illusion 
vanished." He said, on lying down again, "I saw it a second 
time, plainer, if possible, than before." Nesbit says, "seeing a 
special image of one's self is a form of hallucination that occurs 
among the apoplectic and insane." 

We have given twenty names of persons each of whom is 
declared to have been a genius, and each has also been scientifi- 
cally pronounced insane. Lincoln was more or less like each of 
these twenty geniuses. 

In his deep and spasmodic melancholy, he was more or less 
like Johnson, Cowper, Campbell, Goldsmith, Lamb. Rousseau. 
Chateaubriand. Holderlin, Poe and Alfieri. 

Tn his inclination to commit suicide, he was more or less like 
Chatterton, Chateaubriand. Sand. Tannahill. Lenau, Poe, and 
Lucretius. 

In his hallucinations, he was more or less like Shelly, Landor, 
Rousseau, Blake, Tasso and Pellico. 

Tn his dread of insanity, he was more or less like Swift and 
Johnson. 

Tn the strange and periodic "terrifying expression" of his 
features, he was more or less like Rousseau, the statesman and 
philosopher. 

In his treatment of the woman to whom he had plighted his 
faith, he was more or less like Sidney Smith's father. 

In his eccentricity, he was more or less like them all. 

But there is one feature of insaiiity in which he was unlike 
them all. It is given by Henry C. Whitney in these words : 
"While we were traveling in ante-railway days on the circuit, 
and would stop at a farm house for dinner, T^incoln would im- 
prove the leisure in hunting up some farming implement, ma- 
chine, or tool. He would carefulK- examine it all over, first 
generally and then criticall} ; he would right it to determine if 
it was straight or warped : if he corld make a practical test 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 483 

of it he would do that; he would turn it over, or around, and 
stoop, or lie down, if necessary, to look under it ; he would ex- 
amine it closely, then stand off and examine it at a distance , 
he would shake it, lift it, roll it about, up-end it, over-set it, 
and thus ascertain every quality and utility which inhered in 
it." (Hapgood, pp. 113-114.) 

We have shown that "Wisdom and genius are not interchange- 
able terms." Lincoln is admitted to have been a man of gen- 
ius, but is so far from being famed for his erttdition, that Charles 
Francis Adams, of Boston says, "I must therefore affirm, with- 
out hesitation, that in the history of our government, .lown to 
this hour, no experiment so rash has ever been made as that of 
elevating to the head of affairs a man with so little preparation 
for the task as Lincoln." This accoimts for his persistent claim 
that the silence of the Constitution gave liberty to the Federal 
government, and not to the States ; and that "measures othemnse 
unconstitutional, may become lazvf'iil" under emergencies of his 
ozvn creation. 

We have seen ''hallucinations and perfect reasoning powers 
existing side by side." Few, indeed, are those whose reasoning 
powers were more acute than were Lincoln's. Fewer still are 
they who so cunningly and successfully combined fact and fic- 
tion as to give to the latter the color of the former. 

Had he been a man of erudition and had he possessed a thor- 
ough knowledge of the Constitution, and been as devoted to its 
teachings as he was to the liberation of the Southern slaves, 
he would have immortalized bis administration in the truest and 
highest sense. 

It is also in evidence that Egotism is very conspicuous in sub- 
jects of this class of insanity. This explains "the talkative boy" 
and "The Talkative Man." During his youth there came to his 
town a distinguished lecturer. Abe's friends said, "Abe can 
beat that." Mounting a convenient box he showed them that 
he, too, thought so. He, afterwards, criticised a decision of 
the highest Court in America, and. perhaps, the greatest in the 
world, as "A sort of a decision," in comparison with his own. 
At the same time he claimed to have produced "evidence so 
conclusive and argument so clear that even the fathers' great 



■iHi RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

authority can not stand." Yet that "so conclusive evidence" 
was such that no efficient court would accept, and, hence, the 
argument based on it was no better. 

It is also in evidence, on expert testimony, that subjects of 
this species of insanity have "the affective life deranged;" and 
that "there is an amasins; moral insanity;" that "the intelligence 
is oft^n acute enough, being tainted by feelings under the influ- 
ence of which persons think and act." With Lincoln "the pre- 
cise fact" that tainted all of his thoughts and acts was "the 
wrong of shivery." This blinded his mind and heart to the 
sacredness of the Constitution. By it his "affective life was 
deranged ;" and his "moral insanity was amazing," as seen in 
these words addressed to the Chicago ministers : "Nor do I urge 
objections (to Emancipation) of a moral nature in view of 
the possible consequences of insurrection and massacre in the 
South," — a barbarism in violation of all civilized warfare, — a 
barbarism no sane ruler of an enlightened country would sanc- 
tion. The same "amasing moral insanity" is also seen in the 
three American bastiles, to one of which we have referred in 
Chapter XXVII. Political prisoners from Governors and Con- 
gressmen down to bailiffs, were thrown into these on mere sus- 
picion, "zmthout laiv or the form of lazv." All this in free Amer- 
ica ! in the model Republic of the world! Only insanitv, in 
such a country and in such a Republic, could have been guilty 
of a despotism like this. It has been said by many Northern writ- 
ers and truly said, that no other man could have inaugurated 
that war, and so wrought upon the public mind as to have over- 
come lx)th a divided North and a solid South. Nor could he 
have done it had he not been controlled by a mania whose zeal 
a'ld cunning knew no bounds or limitation. 

This brings us to say next, that wo have produced expert tes- 
timony showing that subjects of this peculiar species of insan- 
itv possess no ordinary "ingenuity and cunning." In consid- 
ering this phase of the question, let it be remembered that Lin- 
coln meant war from the beginning. His cunning was seen 
first in his "smooth phrases of enforcing the law and collecting 
the revenue," when all well informed Constitutional lawyers 
knew there wori- no laws to enforce and no revenue to collect. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 485 

It was seen in his skillful manipulation of two supreme court 
judges to inspire the Confederate peace commissioners with 
hope of peace, while all the time he was secretly active in plan- 
ning and plotting to re-enforce Fort Sumter. It was seen in 
the deeper plot of making Fort Sumter the means of causing th( 
Confederates to "fire on the Hag;" and then, in turn, of using 
this event as the means of inflaming the Northern minds against 
the South. "The fla^s; "ivas fired on." The event was declared 
to be a declaration of war on the part of the South. Congress 
was hastily summoned. A shrewd and inflammatory message 
was immediately sent to both Houses. The excitement grew. 
The mob spirit of the North was kindled into a blaze. Seventy- 
five thousand troops were called out for ninety days. It is a 
question whether this small force and this short time imply ig- 
norance on the part of the executive or cunning strategy. Mr. 
Male intimates it means the latter when he says "Lincoln, it mav 
be supposed, received the news (firing on Sumter) with resig- 
nation. He had probably foreseen its necessity. (Mark the 
word necessity. Necessary or not the event had placed him 
in the position in which he desired to stand." According to Hale, 
it was therefore a strategic move to initiate war; and war in 
reality, meant to him the freedom of four million slaves : and 
his suggestive words are : "T know very well that the name 
coi.nected with this act will never be forgotten." 

In the dark days of l<S(i:i "when Confederate victories were 
at high tide and the spirits of the North at low tide, the same 
matchless ingenuity and cunning manifested themselves. The 
public pulse was against him. Then it was he sent Seward 
through the Northern States to request "Governors and influ- 
ential citizens to ask him to issue a call for more troops." Then 
it was the Governors of the loyal states met in Convention at 
Altoona "to discuss the situation," — the result of his scheming 
It w-as now, too, that Carl Schurz, minister to Spain, wrote him 
that "there was great danger of the Southern Confederacv's 
being recognized by France and England." His cunning was 
then again equal to the emergency. He immediately invited 
Schurz to come home. He arranged for him to deliver ar 
address in New York Citv on "Emancipation as a Peace Meas- 



486 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ure," saying "remember you may hear from me the same day." 
The day for the speech was fixed. It was well advertised. A 
large audience greeted the distin;7uished 'speaker . He deli\ered 
his address. At the opportune moment, just as he was in the 
act of taking his seat, he was handed a copy of the President's 
message, given that afternoon to Congress." At this moment 
of surprise and excitement it was read amid the wildest ap- 
plause. The scheme had succeeded. Reporters were there to 
do the rest. This was immediately followed by the organization 
of "Emancipation Societies." It is a question perhaps difficult 
to decide whether the scheming of Lincoln or the millions of 
armed men had the more to do in the success of the North, with 
the odds in favor of the former. 

There is yet still another characteristic that is very common, 
according to the evidence, in subjects of this class of the in- 
sane. It is their inclination to exaggerate. We shall not attempt 
to compile here the many exaggerations of Lincoln. We shall 
refer the reader to Lincoln's Cooper Institute speech, as given 
in Chapters IX, X and XL Indeed the entire speech is an 
exaggeration. We shall content ourselves here with one charac- 
teristic specimen, found in this chapter. It is this: "If what 
I feel were equally distributed to the whole human race, there 
would not be a cheerful face on earth." 

This chapter is the resuk of the writer's investigations of 
the history and philosophy of this Government from its origin 
to the surrender of the armies of the Confederacy. He could 
not account for the sayings and acts of this very erratic and 
unique figure, elevated to the head of aflfairs in 1860, on the 
ground of sanity. Lincoln was an engima. He was gloomy, 
witty and genial. Roth his wit and melancholy were proverbial. 
"His observation on comirion things displayed unusual acumen." 
His homely phrases and illustrations are still quoted with ap- 
probation. He rose imaided and unheralded like a meteor 
above the plains of Illinois, shot athwart the political sky, at- 
tracted international attention, became a world-theme and died 
a mystery. Reasoning with a strange and earnest madness, he 
reversed, by means of shrewd scheming and plotting, the prac- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 487 

tice and teachings of the government from Washington to Lin- 
coln or for three-fourths of a century. Setting at naught the 
advice of his party leaders and leading statesmen, he success- 
fully inaugurated revolution. Holding his hand on the public 
pulse, he knew just when to act and how to act. A fatalist, he 
believed he "had come to the kingdom for this purpose" — to free 
the African. By his cunning he shaped public opinion at will. 
From a bed of leaves in a garret, he rose by fapid strides to 
a gilded couch in the mansion of the Nation. Without either 
great social or educational advantages he became a power su- 
perior to his tented millions. It was not the army, nor was it 
Congress, that prevented comipromise and peace in the fall of 
1862, but Lincoln with his mailed hand on the throats of the 
border states. It was through these states, and these alone, that 
the war against the South succeeded in its purpose. 

If Lincoln retains the high place now assigned him, as a states- 
man and philanthropist, it must be, and it will be, because of his 
peculiar insanity, or moral madness, that enabled him to rise to 
a niche in autocracy, where it could be said of him and him 
alone, "history is crowded with tales of despots, but of no despot 
who thought or decided with the tranquil taciturn independence 
which was now marking this president of the free American 
Republic." (Morse's Abraham Lincoln — American statesman. 
Vol. n.) 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE FALL OF THE CONFEDERACY AND THE 
ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT OF DAVIS- 

The fall of the Confederacy was as sudden as complete. Even 
President Davis seemed slow to believe that the fall of Rich- 
mond was so near at hand. He was in no haste to remove the 
State archives from the city. It was as late as the memorable 
"2nd of April, ISOo, that he abandoned Richmond, and then only 
to gfo as far as Danville. It was here Lee expected to remarshal 
his "invincibles" with the hope of uniting' his forces with those 
of Johnston in the direction of Roanoke river. E)Ut Grant's 
movements caused him to retreat in the direction of Lynchburg. 

It was at Danville Mr. Davis was informed of Lee's surren- 
der. He immediately left for Goldsboro, North Carolina. Here 
he held a consultation with Gen. Johnston, and then moved south- 
ward. At Lexington he received a despatch, requesting the 
presence of Gen. I'reckinridge. his Secretary of War. Gen. 
Sherman had submitted a proposition for the surrender of the 
forces under Johnston, who considered the terms too compre- 
hensive for him to assume the repsonsibility of deciding upon 
them. Gen. Breckinridge and Postmaster General Reagan were 
sent to meet Gen. Johnston near Raleigh. On their arrival 
Gen. Sherman submitted terms of surrender "on which an ar- 
mistice was declared." 

A very remarkable feature of the terms submitted by Gen. 
Sherman "was a declaration of amnesty to all persons both mil- 
itary and civil." Particular attention was called to this clause 
l>y Gen. Johnston, Hreckinridge and Reagan. But Sherman re- 
plied, "I mean just that." and gave as his reason that it was 
"the only way to have perfect peace." 

The authorities at Washington refused to approve these terms, 
and ordered the armistice to cease after a specified time. Davis 
remained in Charlotte until the hour when the armistice ended. 
He then resumed his journey southward passing through South 
Carolina to Washington, Georgia. His cavalry escort with 
which he had started from Charlotte was not heard of after ar- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 489 

riving at Washington because, as he supposed, they had learn- 
ed of the surrender of Johnston. 

While here he learned that a Federal force of cavalry was 
thought to be approaching the town. But the news did not dis- 
turb him. He remained over night. He did not apprehend 
"any molestation from the Federal troops, even if occupying the 
same town." He thought he was protected by the terms of 
Johnston's surrender which ''he believed to be still in force all 
over the country Fast of the Chattahoochee River — the territory 
embraced in Sherman's immediate command. 

Feeling assured that he was protected by (ien. Sherman's arm- 
istice, Mr. Davis did not believe "that any expedition could 
or would be sent for his capture, or for any other war-like pur- 
poses." He cited as an evidence of the correctness of his 
opinion that while he was in Washington "Gen. Upton of the 
Federal Army with a few members of his staff passed unattend- 
ed over the railroad, a few miles from the place, en route for 
Augusta, to receive the muster rolls of the discharged troops. 
and take charge of the immense military stores there that fell 
into Gen. Sherman's hands by the surrender. Gen. Upton was 
not interfered with, the country being at peace, though nothing 
would have been easier had Davis been so inclined." For this 
reason Mr. Davis was not afraid of being captured, and did not 
conceal his movements. How prone a truly honest man is not 
to doubt the honesty of others ! 

Had not Davis yet profited by his knowledge of the intrigues 
at Headquarters in the District of Columbia? At this very time 
while his soul was so much at ease, an entire division of Fed- 
eral cavalry was covering that district of declared peace for 
the purpose of his capture. 

Mr. Davis left Washington in company with Gen. Reagan, 
his three aides, and an escort of ten mounted men. Receiving 
reliable information that bands of marauders were going through 
the country stealing horses and committing other depredations, 
he became alarmed about the safety of his wife and family, 
and determined to hasten to their protection, riding seventy 
miles without halt, reaching there just at daylight. 

Finding "the region infested with deserters and robbers, he 



490 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

traveled several days with his family who had a considerable 
train of wagons, furnished them by the Quartermaster at Wash- 
ington. He evidently did not yet think it necessary to conceal 
either his person or his movements. He still believed when he 
had crossed the Chattahoochee he would be in danger of arrest 
and not before. 

The very evening before his arrest he had planned to leave 
Mrs. Davis and the children to go to the trans-Mississippi De- 
partment, believing Mrs. Davis to be now safe. But just then 
one of his aides reported that a party of guerrillas or highway- 
men was coming that night to seize the horses and mules of his 
wife's train. He, therefore, decided to remain another night. 

It was now the 9th of May, 1865. The place was Irwinville, 
75 miles from Macon, Ga. One other night's protection in an 
emergency, and then a fond farewell, a God-bless-you and a 
race for the trans-Mississippi Department ! But alas ! the dawn 
of another day told a different story. 

It was just the day before (the 8th May) that Gen. Minty 
issued an order addressed to Lieutenant Col. H. N. Howland, 
commanding a brigade as follows: 

"You will have every port and ferry on the Ocmulgee and 
Altamaha Rivers, from Hawkinsville to the Ohoopee River, 
well guarded, and make every effort to capture or kill Davis, 
the rebel ex-President, who is supposed to be endeavoring to 
cross the Ocmulgee South of Macon." (104 War of Rebel- 
lion, 665). 

On the same day Major Gen. J. H. Wilson wrote Gen. Up- 
ton: "the President of the United States has issued his procla- 
mation announcing that the Bureau of Military Justice has re- 
ported upon indisputable evidence that Jefferson Davis, Clement 
C. Clay, Jacob Thompson, George N. Sanders. Beverly Tucker, 
and W. C. Cleary incited and concerted the assassination of 
Mr Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of Mr. Seward. 
He, therefore, offers for the arrest of Davis, Clay and Thompson 
$100,000 dollars each: for Sanders and Tucker $25,000 each; 
and for Cleary $10,000. Publish this in handbills, circulate every- 
where and urge the greatest possible activity in the pursuit. 
(10-1 War of Rebellion 665L 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 491 

Here was Davis trusting implicitly in the armistice of Sherman. 
At that very hour an immense rew^ard was offered for his ar- 
rest by the President of the United States, based, as he claimed, 
"upon indisputable evidence." But the time was short indeed 
when the evidence was both disputed and refuted. 

Gen. Wilson also wrote Gen. Steedman : "Everything is on 
the lookout for J. D. His cavalry is dissolved, and he is a fug- 
itive, but in what direction is not known. (104 War of Re- 
bellion 666). 

On the 10th day of May, 1865, Lieut.-Col. B. D. Pritchard, 
commanding the 4th Michigan Cavalry "captured at Irwinville, 
Ga., Mr. Davis with his family, his wife's sister and brother, 
Mr. Reagan, his Postmaster-General, Mr, Burton N. Harrison, 
his private Secretary, Col. W. Preston Johnston, and Col. Lub- 
bock, of his staff, and Lieut. Hathaway; together with five wag- 
ons and three ambulances. 

The mere statement of the foregoing facts, is proof posi- 
tive that President Davis was not caught in an effort to "escape 
in his wife's clothing." It was the fabrication of a newspaper 
correspondent. Col. Pritchard in his announcement of the cap- 
ture said nothing of any such endeavor on the part of Davis. 
Yet ''Major-General J. H. Wilson in his official report to Mr. 
Stanton, the Secretary of War, on the ]4th of May, makes the 
statement, saying he derived it from 'the captors.' " 

Why should Gen. Wilson make such a charge under the phrase 
"from the captors," when Col. Pritchard in his official report 
and correspondence makes no such statement? Col. Pritchard 
was the one man whose testimony should have weighed with 
Gen. Wilson. Yet under the indefinite term, "the captors" he 
makes the grave charge. The man traveling with a train of five 
wagons and three ambulances with his family and a number 
of others, without effort to conceal his identity, does not feel 
the need of disguising himself. Besides, James H, Parker, one 
of "the captors," and the first to recognize him, published in 
the Portland Argus (Maine) a full story of the capture while 
Davis was still in prison. In this story he writes : 

"She (Mrs. Davis) behaved like a lady and he as a gentle- 
man, though manifestly he was chagrined at being taken into 



492 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

custody. Qiir soldiers behaved like gentlemen, as they were, 
and our officers like honorable, brave men, and the foolish stor- 
ies that went the newspaper rounds were all false I defy 

anybody to find a single officer or soldier (and there was not 
less than two regiments present) who was present at the cap- 
ture of Jefferson Davis, who will say, upon honor, that he was 
disguised in a woman's clothes, or that his wife acted in any 
way unladylike and undignified on the occasion." 

True Southerners place their honor above their lives. No 
English lord excelled them in dignity. No conditions could be- 
tray them into unbecoming conduct. It is a custom among 
newspaper men to add sensational features to their stories for 
publication, that they may be the more readable. This false- 
hood was the mere fabrication of a newspaper correspondent, 
and yet it was given more credence than the official report of 
Col. Pritchard. 

When honesty is wanting, dignity is either lacking or clothed 
in borrowed light. Honesty of purpose was wanting in the 
proclamation of President Johnson and in the official report of 
Major-General Wilson. All the dignity that belonged to these 
two distinguished personages was borrowed from their high 
official positions. 

T. H. Peabody, an eminent lawyer of St. Louis, was also one 
of the captors. In a speech to the Grand Army Post a few 
days after the death of President Davis, he also denied the 
whole story. 

Tt was however, a sweet morsel to the President of the Unit- 
ed States, to Major-Gen. Wilson, and to the Secretary and As- 
sistant Secretary of War. Three days after the capture of Da- 
\is the Secretary of \\^ar, Mr. Stanton, wrote to the Rev. R. J. 
Breckinridge of Kentucky that "Jefferson Davis was caught 
three days ago in Georgia trying to escape in his wife's clothes." 
n?1 War of Rebellion 555). 

Twelve days after the capture of Davis the Assistant Secre- 
tary of War, Mr. Dana, ordered Gen. Miles to have Col. Prit- 
chard to bring with him "the woman's dress in which Jefferson 
Davis was captured, (121 War of Rebellion 569). That dress 
was not produced, for the best of reasons. Had Messrs. Stanton 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 493 

and Dana possessed one-tenth of the chivalry of Davis they 
would have publicly confessed their error, and have asked Da- 
vis's pardon. 

In as much as high officials have ratified the newspai^er 
charges, and in as much as this fact is of record, it is proper 
that we set this question at rest forever. About the time of the 
arrest of Davis, the public mind throughout the entire coun- 
try, especially in the North, was in the highest state of excite- 
ment. In the midst of this abnormal condition of things a con- 
spiracy was formed for the purpose of deceiving Mr. Holt, the 
Judge Advocate General, and obtaining money from the Govern- 
ment. The conspirators consisted of six men and two women, 
all under fictitious names. Lincoln had just been assassinated 
and perhaps no crime in the history of the world had stirred 
deeper feelings of indignation than did that of the assassination 
of Lincoln. That crime was seized upon as the means of 
accomplishing their purpose. They cunningly implicated Davis. 
Clay, Thompson and others in the crime. They detailed fic- 
titious conversations with Davis and others. They falsely rep- 
resented the deeds of these men. Through the press of the 
North they inflamed to fever heat the public mind. Though 
their fabrications were such that it has been truthfully said 
of them, "a child who would faithfully believe the dreams of 
Alice in Wonderland would reject them as false," yet Mr. Holt, 
the Judge Advocate General, swallowed them all as sweet mor- 
sels, and poured large sums of money belonging to the Govern- 
ment into the laps of the conspirators. 

Congress finally ordered an investigation of the charges made 
by these conspirators, and appointed a committee to examine 
into them. That committee consisted of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of the Lower House, with J. C. Turner of the Bureau of 
Military Justice. 

The first thing this committee did was to designate Mr. Tur- 
ner to investigate the character of the witnesses upon whose 
testimony they were to rely to establish so heinous a crime. 
This resulted in a confession of many of the so-called witnesses 
that the whole "matter was a conspiracy for the purpose of de- 



4P4 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ceiving Gen. Holt and obtaining money from the Govern- 
ment." 

The report of that committee, as made by Col. Turner is as 
follows : 

"Sanford G>nover — his true name is Dunham ; lawyer by pro- 
fession, formerly lived at Croton. then in New York and Brook- 
lyn ; a very shrewd, bad, dangerous man. William Campbell — 
his true name is Joseph A. Hoare, a gas-fixer by trade ; born 
in the State of New York and never South of Washington. 
Joseph Snevel — his true name is William H. Roberts, formerly 
ticket agent on Harlem railroad, then kept tavern at Yonkers, 
etc. ; was never South. Tarnum B. Wright — true name John 
Waters ; is lame in knee ; works in a brick yard near Cold 
Springs, on Long Island, etc. John H. Patten — true name Peter 
Stevins, lives at Nyack, near Piedmont, on the North River; 
is now a justice of peace there. Sarah Douglas and Miss Knapp 
— the true narne of one is Dunham, who is the wife of Conover ; 
the name of the other is Mrs. Charles Smythe; she is the sister, 
or sister-in-law, of Conover and lives at Cold Springs ; her hus- 
band is a clerk on Blackwell's Island. Mr. McGill — his name 
is Neally ; he is a licensed pedler in New York, and sometimes 
drives a one-horse cart." 

The report closes with : "My investigation and the disclos- 
ure made prove (undoubtingly to my mind) that the depositions 
made by Campbell, Snevel, Wright, Patten, Mrs. Douglas and 
others, are false; that they are cunningly! devised diabolical 
fabrications of Conover, verified by suborned and perjured ac- 
complices." 

This report completely exhonorated Davis, Clay, and all others 
charged with the murder of Mr. Lincoln. At the same time 
It greatly embarassed Mr. Holt, the Judge Advocate General. 
Withdrawing his depositions he defended himself in "Eleven 
closely printed pages, detailing all the correspondence and in- 
terviews with Conover, and the other conspirators." If in 
this labored effort he convinced himself he is perhaps the only 
man convinced. The example is conspicuous for the ease with 
which "the wish becomes father of the thought." It is evident 
that all these "diabolical fabrications of Conover" were "cun- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 495 

ningly devised" by him for the money he received from the 
Government; and that they were "verified by his suborned 
and perjured accomplices" for the same purpose. Conover 
knew Gen. Holt's readiness to believe any disreputable report 
about Davis and the other distinguished Southerners. He was 
not deceived, but Holt, his willing tool was. This was "the in- 
disputable evidence" reported by Holt to President Johnson, and 
upon which the President based his $100,000 rewards for Davis 
and Clay. 

How did Conover, the leading conspirator and shrewd law- 
yer, know Holt so well? Mrs. Suratt, innocent of the crime 
charged against her, had just fallen a victim to the fury of the 
vindictive Judge Advocate (rcneral, and had paid the penalty 
of her life. The ease with which this imposition was accom- 
plished, led to the conspirac\. If Holt had not lost his reason 
in the case of Mrs. Suratt he would not have been duped in 
the case of Davis and others. 

Col. Pritchard took his prisoners to Macon, reaching that 
place in four days. From Macon they were transferred to 
Augusta by rail — "Mr. Davis thanking General Wilson for hav- 
ing treated him with all the courtesy possible to the situation." 

On the 19th of May, 1865, the propeller William P. Clyde 
dropped anchor in Hampton Roads. She had on board, as pris- 
oners, Jeflferson Davis and his family, Alexander H. Stephens, 
John H. Reagan, Clement C. Clay and other State prisoners 
belonging to the Confederacy. On the 21st day of May, Mr. 
Stephens, Mr. Reagan, and other prisoners were transferred 
to the gunboat INIaumee, and sent to Fort Warren in Boston 
Harbor. On the afternoon of the same day Mr. Davis and 
Mr. Clay were sent to Fortress Monroe. 

The procession from the gimboat Maumee to Fort Monroe 
is described by Dr. Craven, the physician of the Fort as "simple 
(hough monotonous, and was under the immediate inspection 
of Major-Gen. Halleck and the Hon. Charles A. Dana, then 
Assistant Secretary of War; Col. Pritchard of the Michigan 
cavalry, who immediately effected the capture, being the officer 
in command of the guard from the vessel to the fort. First 
crime Major-Gen. Miles, holding the arm of Davis, who was 



496. RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

dressed in a suit of plain Confederate grey, with a grey slouch- 
ed hat — always thin, and now looking much wasted and very 
haggard. Immediately after these came Col. Pritchard, accom- 
panying Mr. Clay with a guard of soldiers in their rear. Thus 
they passed through files of men in blue from the Engineer's 
Landing to the water Battery Postern ; and on arriving at the 
casemate which had been fitted up into cells for their incarcera- 
tion, Mr. Davis was shown into casemate No. 2, and Clay into 
No. 4, guards of soldiers stationed in 1. 3, 5 upon each side of 
them. They entered. The heavy doors clanged behind them . . . 

"Being ushered into his inner cell by Gen. Miles, and the two 
doors leading thereinto from the guard-room, being fastened, 
Mr. Davis, after surveying the premises for some moments and 
looking out through the embrasure with such thoughts which 
his lined and expressive face, as may be imagined, >iid.denly 
seated himself in a chair, placing both hands on his knees 
and asked one of the soldiers pacing up and down within his 
cell, this significant question : 'Which way does the embrasure 
face?' 

"The soldier was silent. 

"Mr. Davis, raising his voice a little, repeated the inquir\. But 
again dead silence, or only the measured foot-falls of the pacing 
sentries within, and the fainter echoes of the four without. 

"Addressing the other soldier, as if the first had been deaf 
and had not heard him, the prisoner again repeated his inquiry. 

"But the second soldier remained silent as the first, a slight 
twitching of his eyes only intimating that he had heard the ques- 
tion, but was forbidden to speak. 

" 'Well, " said Mr. Davis, throwing his hands up, and break- 
ing into a bitter laugh, 'I wish my men could have been taught 
your discipline r and then rising from his chair, he commenced 
pacing back and forth before the embrasure, now looking at the 
silent sentry across the moat, and anon at the two silently pac- 
ing soldiers who were his companions in the casemate. 

We have italicized the following for a purpose : "guards of 
soldiers stationed in 1, 3, 5, upon each side of them." "The 
heat'y doors clanged behind them;" "asked one of the soldiers 
pacing up and down within his cell;" "the measured footfalls of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 497 

the pacing sentries within and the fainter echoes of the four 
ivithoiit;" and "at the tivo silent pacing soldiers who were his 
companions — in the casemate." 

We also have the testimony of Mr. Dana, the Assistant vSec- 
retary of War. The one may throw light upon the other. We 
quote as follows italicizing as it suits us : 

"The arrangements for the security of the prisoners seem to- 
me as complete as could be desired. Each one occupies the 
inner room of a casemate. The window is heavily barred. The 
sentry stands within before each of the doors leading into the- 
outer room. These doors are to be grated, but are secured by 
bars fastened on the outer side. Two other sentries stand out- 
side of these doors. An officer is also constantly in the outer 
room, whose duty it is to see his prisoners every fifteen minutes.. 
The outicr door of all is locked on the outside, and the key is 
kept exclusively by the general officer of the guard. Two sen- 
tries are also stationed zvithoiit that door. . .A strong line of 
sentries cuts off all access to the vicinity of the casements. An- 
other line is stationed on top of the parapet overhead, and a 
third line is posted acrosss the moat on the counterscarp oppositc 
the places of confinement. The casemates on each s^ide and be- 
tzveen those occupied by the prisoners are used as guard rooms 
and soldiers are always there. A lamp is constantly kept burn- 
ing in each of the rooms. The furniture of each of the prison- 
ers is a hospital bed, with iron bedsteads, a chair, a table, a 
movable stool closet. A Bible is allowed to each. I have not 
given orders to have them placed in irons as Gen. Halleck seems 
to oppose it, but Gen. Miles is instructed to have fetters ready 
if he thinks them necessary. The prisoners are to be supplied 
with soldiers' rations, cooked by the guard. Their linen will 
be issued to them in the same way. I shall be back tomorrow 
morning." 

In the previous part of this account by Mr. Dana we are 
told that Mr. Davis, after parting with his wife, his secretary,, 
and his staff, "bore himself with a haughty attitude, his face 
was somewhat flushed, but his features were composed and his 
step firm." 

Later on that same day, before leaving the fort, Mr. Dana^ 



498 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

annoyed perhaps as he recalled the "haughty attitude" of Mr. 
Davis, wrote in Mr. Stanton's name: 

"Brevet-Major-General Miles is hereby authorized and direct- 
ed to place manacles and fetters upon the hands and feet of 
Jeflferson Davis and Clement C. Clay whenever he may deem it 
advisable in order to render their imprisonment more secure." 

(121 War of Rebellion 565.) 

Had he not just said "the arrangements for the security of 
the prisoners seem to me to be as complete as could be desired?" 
Does not his own account, given that very day, show most con- 
clusively that not even "manacles and fetters on the hands and 
feet of Davis and Clay, both old, delicate, emaciated, weak and 
worn, could not "render their imprisonment more secure?" If 
instead of placing "manacles and fetters" on their "hands and 
feet," they had driven the sword of hatred into the very hearts 
of Davis and Clay, they would not have been more helpless? 
Sentinels within, and sentinels without ; sentinels on each side 
of them and sentinels on. the "top of the parapet overhead ;" — 
lines of sentries, first, second, and "third," all these to guard 
two old men who could not run fifty yards without endangering 
their lives, if at liberty and unmolested. Besides all these, they 
were shut in by "lieavy doors" and strong walls ; and each case- 
ment had an "inner room," and each of the distinguished pris- 
oners was confined in an "inner room," and thus two walls, to 
say nothing of the strong thick walls of the fort itself, inter- 
vened between the prisoners and liberty. Nor was even this 
all. Two sentinels pace in the immediate presence of each, day 
and night, witnessing every movement of the body, hearing 
every sigh, and able to lay violent hands on them at any mo- 
ment. Was ever an imprisonment more secure, more trying 
upon the nerves, more cruel, more insulting? 

On the 24th day of May 1865, Gen. Miles wrote to Mr. 
Dana: "Yesterday I directed that irons be put on Davis ankles, 
which he violently resisted, but became more quiet afterwards." 
(121 War of Rebellion 570-71.) 

It was therefore on the 23rd day of May — just thirteen days 
after his arrest and the second day after his incarceration — 
when Davis was placed in irons. Evidently it was intended to 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 499 

humble that "haughty attitude." This act of hate, and malice, 
of shame and disgrace was that of two officials, and therefore 
the act of the Government. That it was not at all necessary, 
the facts, as given above, show with a conclusiveness that is ab- 
solutely indisputable. If the Government can be excused at 
all it is due to the misfortune of having officials, one of whom, 
while in a soldier's garb and position, was without a soldier's 
training and a soldier's high sense of honor ; and the other while 
commanding the Department of War in a great Government, 
either from his education or his slavery to passion and hate, 
could not rise above the level of the savage chief. Then too 
what shall be said of the President who sanctioned it by per- 
mitting it? It is well known that he was a tailor and illiterate 
when he married : and that his wife educated him after his hab- 
its were formed. What distinction could he draw between an 
eminent and honorable prisoner and a felon as prisoner? 

Gen. Miles simply says of the shackling of Davis: "He 
violently resisted, but became more quiet afterward." Dr. Cra- 
ven, the surgeon of the prison, in his book on "The Prison Life 
of Jefferson Davis," gives the particulars in detail. He says: 

"It was while all the swarming camps of the armies of the 
Potomac — over two hundred thousand bronzed and laureled 
veterans, were preparing for the grand review of the next morn- 
ing, in which, passing in endless succession before the mansion 
of the President, the conquering military power of the nation was 
to lay dovm its arms at the feet of the civil authority, that the 
following scene was enacted at Fort Monroe : 

"Captam Tames E. Titlow, of the Third Pennsylvania Artil- 
lery, entered the prisoner's cell, followed by the blacksmith of 
the fort and his assistant, the latter carrying in his hands some 
heavy and harshly-rattling shackles. As they entered, Mr. 
Davis was reclining in his bed, feverish, and weary after a sleep- 
less night, the food placed near to him the preceding day still 
lying untouched on its tin plate near his bedside. 

"Well?" said Mr. Davis, as they entered, slightly raising his 
head. 

"I have an unpleasant duty to perform, sir," said Captain 



500 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Titlow, and as he spoke, the senior blacksmith took the shackles 
from his assistant. 

"Davis leaped instantly from his recumbent attitude, a flush 
passing over his face for a moment, and then his countenance 
growing livid and rigid as death. 

"He gasped for breath, clutching his throat with the thin fin- 
gers of his right hand, and then recovering himself slowly, while 
his wasted figure towered to its full height, now appearing to 
swell with indignation and then to shrink with terror, as he 
glanced from the Captain's face to the shackles — he said slowly 
and with a laboring chest: 

" 'My God !' you can not have been sent to iron me !" 

"Such are my orders,'' replied the officer, beckoning the black- 
smith to approach, who stepped forward, unlocking the padlock 
and preparing the fetters to do their office. These fetters were 
of heavy iron, probably five-eights of an inch thick, and con- 
nected together by a chain of the same weight. I believe they 
are now in the possession of Major-General Miles, and will 
form an interesting relic. 

" 'This is too monstrous' groaned the prisoner, glaring hur- 
riedly around the room, as if for some weapon or means of 
self-destruction. 'I demand Captain, that you let me see the 
commanding officer. Can he pretend that such shackles are 
required to secure the safe custody of a weak old man, so guard- 
ed, and in such a fort as this?' 

" 'It could serve no purpose,' replied Capt. Titlow, 'his or- 
ders are from Washington, as mine are from him.' 

"'But he can telegraph,' interposed Mr. Davis eagerly; 'there 
must be some mistake. No such outrage as you threaten me 
with, is on record in the history of nations. Beg him,' to tele- 
graph, and delay until he answers.' 

" 'My orders are peremptory,' said the officer, 'and admit of 
no delay. For your own sake, let me advise you to submit 
with patience. As a soldier, Mr. Davis, you know I must ex- 
ecute orders !' 

" 'These are not orders for a soldier,' shouted the prisoner, 
losing all control of himself. 'They are orders for a jailor — 
for a hang-man, which no soldier wearing a sword should ac- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 501 

cept.' "I tell you the world will ring with this disgrace. The 
war is over ; the South is conquered ; I have no longer any coun- 
try but America, and it is for the honor of American, as for 
my own honor and life, that I plead against this degredation. 
" 'Kill me ! Kill me !' he cried, passionately throwing his arms 
wide open and exposing his breast, 'rather than inflict on me 
and on my people through me, this insult worse than death.' 

" 'Do your duty, blacksmiith,' said the officer, walking toward 
the embrasure as if not caring to witness the performance. 'It 
only gives increased pain on all sides to protract this inter- 
view/ 

"At these words the blacksmith advanced with the shackles, 
and seeing that the prisoner had one foot upon the chair near 
his bedside, his right hand resting on the back of it, the brawny 
mechanic made an attempt to slip one of the shackles over the 
ankle so raised ; but as if wnth the vehemence and strength which 
frenzy can impart, even to the weakest invalid, Mr. Davis sud- 
denly seized his assailant and hurled him half way across the 
room, and the sergeant advanced to seize the prisoner. Im- 
mediately Mr. Davis flew on him, and seized his musket and at- 
tempted to wrench it from his grasp. 

"Of course such a scene could have but one issue. There 
was a short, passionate scuflfle. In a moment Davis was flung 
upon his bed, and before his four powerful assailants removed 
their hands from him, the blacksmith and his assistant had done 
their work — one securing the rivet on the right ankle, while 
the other turned the key in the padlock on the left. 

"This done Mr. Davis lay for a moment, as if in a stupor 
(what Gen. Miles called "more quiet"). Then slowly raising 
himself and turning around, he dropped his shackled feet on the 
floor. The harsh clank of the striking chain seems first to have 
recalled him to his situation, and dropping his face into his 
hands, he burst into a passionate flood of sobbing, rocking to 
and fro, and muttering at brief intervals: "Oh! the shame the 
shame !" 

Dr. Craven closes this account of the fettering of Mr. Davis 
by saying, "He gave me, after some two months, a curious ex- 
planation of the last feature in this incident. 



502 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"He had been speaking of suicide, and denouncing it as tiie 
worst form of cowardice and folly. 'Life is not like a commis- 
sion that we can resign when disgusted with the service. Tak- 
ing it by your own hand is a confession of judgment to all that 
your worst enemies can allege. It has often flashed across me 
as a tempting remedy for neuralgic torture ; but thank God ! 
I never sought my own death but once, and then when com- 
pletely frenzied and not master of my actions. When they came 
to iron me that day, as a last resource of desperation, I seized 
a soldier's mlusket and attempted to wrench it from his grasp, 
hoping that in the scufifle and surprise, some one of his comrades 
would shoot or bayonet me.' " 

We have now discussed the imprisonment of Mr. Davis from 
the standpoint of disinterested and enlightened information — 
information from the lips of one who was in position to know 
the facts. What motive prompted it? Certainly it was not the 
want of absolute security. The infirmity of age and all the 
facts testify to the contrary. There was no motive, there could 
have been no motive— but "the bitter and infuriated malice of 
the Government" — a motive that "sought through the entire 
war to cast every obloquy upon the character of the great South- 
ern Chief." Had not this Government for four long years of 
war that taxed all its resources, called him an "assassin" and 
"a murderer?" Had it not all that time hoped to overwhelm 
him and his cause with false accusations? Especially within the 
last few days, in the face of the strongest evidence to the econ- 
trary, had not the Government attempted to immerse and bear 
him down in ridicule and humiliation by charging him with an 
efifort to escape arrest, "disguised as a woman?" 

This ofificial falsehood, this official wrong, and this official 
outrage deserve the scorn and the indignation of the enlightened 
world. Those who thus attempted to overwhelm him with rid- 
icule and humiliation, and who tried "to brand him with a felon's 
shame by degrading him with a felon's shackles," deserve no 
less than the brand of shame they would heap upon him. A 
future whose confines lie well beyond the borders of the present 
will laud only the brave, the virtuous, the noble and the true. 
Tn that impartial realm shame, falsehood, and all that is ignoble 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 503 

will be rewarded with curses. When Napoleon was a prisoner 
on St. Helena, he wore his sword "merely as an ornamental side- 
arm." It is said that when the officer in command of the British 
forces there demanded of him the surrender of his sword, he 
refused, and that "all Europe rang with the insult and outrage."" 
The English Government had respect to "the dignity of their 
illustrious prisoner and of the feeling of outrage in all Europe, 
and the order was withdrawn?" "How different the conduct 
of our Government toward a prisoner scarcely less eminent than 
the great Corsican !" England was magnanimous. She could 
afford to be. The United States Government could have been 
magnanimous, and should have been, but it was, instead, petty 
and spiteful and vindictive and cruel. The conduct of England 
toward her illustrious prisoner is honored and magnified to-day 
and will be for all time. The conduct of the United States 
toward her illustrious prisoner is censured and denounced to-day 
and will be for all time. As the glory of England for this gen- 
erous deed will never fade, so the stain upon our civilization 
will never be erased. "Here was a man who a few short weeks 
before was the acknowledged ruler of six millions of people ; 
with immense armies at his command; with cabinet officers, 
ambassadors, and a staff of devoted adherents ; filling a foremost, 
place in history, the world ringing with his deeds and in sym- 
pathy with his hopes ; he who had founded an empire and main- 
lined it through a war more formidable than any of modern 
times — a man thus eminent and conspicuous, cast into a dun- 
geon and shackled like any common felon! There is indeed in 
history little to parallel it, and the indignity intended as a hu- 
miliation to Jefferson Davis, has reacted and become our own 
burning shame." 

As with all Europe in the case of Napoleon so the people of 
the United States, denounced the act of Johnson, Stanton, Dana, 
and Miles in the most bitter terms. They expected sympathy, 
but received censure. They expected their act of shame to be 
received with enthusiasm, but "cruelty is not a characteristic of 
the American." When they learned that the shackles on Davis 
had "excited sympathy and indignation instead of applause," 
they became alarmed; and on the 38th day of May, just five days 



504 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

after irons had been placed on the ankles of Davis, the Secretary 
■of War telegraphed Gen. Miles from Washington : 

■"Please report whether shackles have been or have not been 

placed on Jefferson Davis If they have been, when was 

it done, and for what reason, and remove them/' (131 War of 
Rebellion 577). 

This dispatch implies that Stanton did not know that Davis 
was shackled; and hence that he did not order it. It is both 
:a command and a rebuke. 

Gen. Miles' reply is is characteristic. It is as follows : 

""I have the honor to state in reply to your dispatch that when 
Jefferson Davis was first confined in the casemate the inner 
doors were light and wooden ones without locks. I directed 
anklets to be put upon his ankles which would not interfere with 
his walking, but would prevent his running, should he endeavor 
to escape. In the meantime I have changed the wooden doors 
for grated ones with locks, and the anklets have been removed. 
Every care is taken to avoid any pretence for complaint, as 
well as to prevent the possibility of escape." (121 War of 
Rebellion 577). 

Soth these dispatches were in reply to an indignant public, 
North as well as South. Be it known that the shackles were not 
removed until the very day (May 28) on which he was ordered 
to remove them. We thus learn what is meant by "in the mean- 
time." 

In the diary of Dr. J. J. Craven, as given in his "The Prison 
Life of Jefferson Davis," page 62, we find the following: 

"Sunday, May 28 — At 11 A. M. This morning was sitting 
on the porch in front of my quarters when Capt. Frederick 
Korte, 3rd Pennsylvania Artillery, who was officer of the day, 
passed toward the cell of the prison, followed by the blacksmith. 
This told the story, and sent a pleasant professional thrill of 
pride through my veins. It was a vindication of my theory 
that the healing art is only next in sacredness and power to that 
of the healers of the soul — an instance of the doctrinal toga 
forming a shield for suffering humanity which none were too 
exalted or powerful to disregard. I hastily followed the party, 
but remained in the outer guard-room while the smith removed 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OE THE SOUTH 505 

the shackles. Did not let Mr. Davis see me then, but retired, 
thinlcing it better the prisoner should be left alone in the first 
moments of regaining so much of his personal freedom." 

Dr. Craven had interceded with Gen. Miles in behalf of Mr. 
Davis and was exultant because he thought his intercessions 
had prevailed. He did not then know of the telegram Gen. 
Miles had that very day received. 

On page 48 we find another entry antedating this in Dr. 
Craven's diary as follows : "Told him to spend as little time as 
he could in bed; that exercise was the best medicine for dis- 
peptic patients. To this he answered by uncovering the blankets 
from his feet and showing me his shackled ankles. 'It is im- 
possible for me, Doctor; I cannot even stand erect. These 
shackles are very heavy, I know not with the chain how many 
pounds. If I try to move they trrp me and have already abraded 
broad patches of skin from the parts they touch. Can you 
devise some means to pad or cushion them, so that when I try 
to drag them along they may not chafe me so intolerably? My 
limbs have so little flesh on them, and that so weak, as to be 
easily lacerated.' 

"At sight of this I turned away, promising to see what could 
be done, as exercise was the chief medical necessity in his case, 
and at tliis moment my first thrill of sympathy for my patient 
was experienced." 

Here is an officer of the United States army, holding a com- 
mission that entitles him to be honored in all parts of the civilized 
world. Yet his zeal in bitterness and hatred toward a distin- 
guished prisoner has compromised his intergrity and committed 
him to falsehood. Dana had said, "The arrangements for the 
security of the prisoners seem to me as complete as could be 
desired." Dr. Craven had said, "The heavy doors clanged behind 
them " Miles said, "The doors are light." Miles was writing 
in self-defense; Dana and Craven were not. Dana had said the 
doors were secured by bars on the outside ; Miles said "the doors 
were without locks,' adding nothing about their being secured 
by bars fastened on the outside. From Dana and Craven we 
learn that never were prisoners more securely guarded — confined 
in a cell within a cell, constantly under the eyes of two trusty 



506 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

sentinels, and every fifteen mmutes inspected by a commissioned 
officer, with soldiers quartered, all the time, in contiguous cells 
on both sides of him, shut in by the very thick walls of the 
strongest fort in the Continent, and line after line of guards 
inside and outside. Yet, Gen. Miles said, "I directed anklets to 
be put upon his ankles, which would not interfere with his 
walking, but would interfere with his running, should he en- 
deavor to escape." 

Had Davis been an athlete in the prime of life, in the best 
possible condition, — as active as a tiger, and as strong as a lion, — 
none kncAv better than Gen. Miles that shackles would not have 
been necessary. On the contrary. Miles knew him to have been 
a physical wreck. Not only did he know that, in the truest sense, 
Davis was unable to run, but w^as also unwilling. Yet never 
was the most vicious wild beast, fresh from the jungles, half so 
securely guarded. 

"Anklets !" what are they ':' Shackles "five-eights of an inch 
thick, with chain of the same thickness !" Anklets that "would 
not interfere with his walking!" Whom shall we believe, Dr. 
Craven and Davis, or Miles? The most fitting anklet for a 
character of Davis' type would have been his honor. To have 
put him upon his honor would have been to have placed upon 
his limbs the strongest anklet in the world. His honor would 
also have been the safest guard that could have been placed 
around him. Old Fortress Monroe, with all her more than 370 
guns, and all the chivalry that stood behind them, would not have 
been as strong a guard as his simple word of honor. But of 
a safe guard like this, Miles, and Dana and Stanton were ig- 
norant till an indignant public protest aroused them to their 
senses. 

When Miles shackled Davis for five days he shackled himself 
for all time. When he penned that dispatch in self-defense he 
wrote his everlasting condemnation. No living mortal believes 
him — not even excepting himself. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 
THE IMPRISONMENT OF DAVIS (Continued). 

In 1866 Mr. Doolady, publisher, 448 Broome Street, New York, 
published "Life and Military Career of Stonewall Jackson," from 
authentic sources. From this book we copy the following-, say- 
ing in advance that all italics are ours. We do this becuase it 
is authentic and concise. 

"The health of Mr. Davis was now failing rapidly. Suffering 
greatly from neuralgic disorders and other various affections, 
greatly reduced in system, without appetite, unable on account 
of his shackles to take exercise, supplied with coarse rations and 
refused even a knife and fork, without books, pen, paper or 
even a pencil, incessantly watched by two sentinels, who night 
and day paced his cell ; thus depriving him of even so poor a 
boon as solitude and silence, the health of the unfortunate pris- 
oner failed rapidly, and would soon have succumbed entirely 
to the inhuman treatment to which he was subjected, had not 
Dr. Craven actively interested himself in his behalf and procured 
the removal of the shackles, and some changes in his rations. 
But still the prisoner was a great sufferer, his nights were sleep- 
less ; he was without appetite ; the incessant pacing night and 
day, of the ever present guards, acted upon his nervous system 
and tormented him almost into insanity. 

"Referring once to the severity of his treatment, Mr. Davis 
said to Dr. Craven : 'Humanity supposes every man innocent 
until the reverse shall be proven; and the laws guarantee cer- 
tain privileges to persons held for trial. To hold me for trial, 
under all the rigors of a condemned convict, is not warranted 
by law — is revolting to the spirit of justice. In the political 
history of the world, there is no parallel to my treatment. Eng- 
land and the despotic governments of Europe have beheaded 
men accused of treason ; but even after their conviction no such 
efforts as in my case have been made to degrade them. Apart, 
however, from personal treatment, let us see how this matter 
stands : 

" 'If the real purpose in the matter be to test the question of 



508 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

secession by trying certain persons connected therewith for trea- 
son, from what class or classes should the persons so selected 
be drawn? 

" Trom those who called the State Conventions, or from those 
who, in their respective Conventions, passed the ordinance of 
secession ? Or, from the authors of the doctrine of State rights ? 
Or, from those citizens who, being absent from their States, 
were unconnected with the event, but on its occurrence returned 
to their homes to share the fortunes of their States as a duty 
of primal allegiance? Or, from those officers of the State who, 
being absent on public service, were called home by the ordinance, 
and returning joined their fellow citizens in State service, and 
followed the course due to that relation? 

" 'To the last class I belong, who am the object of the greatest 
rigor. This can only be explained on the supposition that, having 
been most honored, I therefore excite most revengeful feelings — 
for how else can it be accounted for? 

" 'I did not wish for war, but peace ; therefore sent commis- 
sioners to negotiate before war commenced ; and subsequently 
strove my uttermost to soften the rigors of war; in every pause 
of conflict, seeking if possible, to treat for peace. Numbers 
of those already pardoned are those who, at the beginning, urged 
that the black flag should be hoisted, and the struggle be made 
one of desperation. 

" 'Believing the States to be each sovereign, and their Union 
voluntary, I had learned from the authors of the Constitution 
that a State could change its form of government, abolishing 
all which had previously existed ; and my only crime has been 
obedience to this conscientious conviction. Was not this the 
universal doctrine of the dominant Democratic party in the 
North previous to secession? Did not many of the opponents 
of that party in the same section, share and avow that faith? 
They preached and professed to believe. We believed and 
preached, and practiced. 

" 'If this theory be now judged erroneous, the history of the 
States, from their colonial organization to the present moment, 
should be rewritten, and the facts suppressed which may mis- 
lead others in a like manner to a like conclusion. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 509 

" 'But if as I suppose — the purpose be to test the question of 
secession by a judicial decision, why begin by oppressing the 
chief subject of the experiment? Why in the name of fair- 
ness and a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, deprive 
him of the means needful for the preparation of his defense ; and 
load him with indignities which must deprive his mind of its 
due equilibrium ? It ill comports with the dignity of a great na- 
tion to evince fear of giving to a single captive enemy all the 
advantages possible for an exposition of his side of the question. 
A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, m.ust re- 
main unsettled forever. (What a terrible arraignment is this, 
and yet how just!) 

" 'If the doctrine of State Sovereignty be a dangerous heresy. 
the genius of America would indicate another remed\ than 
the sacrifice of one of its believers. Wickliffe died, but Huss 
took up his teachings ; and when the dust of this martyr was 
sprinkled on the Rhine, some essence of it was infused in the 
cup which Luther drank. 

" 'The road to the grants of power is known and open ; and 
thus all questions of reserved rights on which men of highest 
distinction may differ, and have differed, can be settled by fair 
adjudication ; and thus only can they be finally set at rest." 

"At another time Mr. Davis remarked it was 'contrary to 
reason, and the law of nations, to treat as rebellion, or lawlees 
riot, a movement which had been the deliberate action of an 
entire people through their organized State governments.' To 
talk of treason in the case of the South, was to impose an ar- 
bitrary epithet against the authority of all writers on interna- 
tional law. Vattel deduces from his study of all former prece- 
dent — and all subsequent international jurists have agreed with 
him — that when a nation separates into two parts, each claim- 
ing independence, and both, or either, setting up a new govern- 
micnt, their quarrel, should it come to trial by arms, or by di- 
plomacy, shall be regarded as settled precisely as though it were 
a difference between two separate nations, which the divided 
sections, defacto, have become. Each must observe the laws 
of war in the treatment of captives taken in battle, and such 
negotiations as may from time to time arise shall be conducted 



510 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

as between independent and sovereigpi powers. Mere riots, 
or conspiracies for lawless objects, in which only limited fac- 
tions of a people are irregularly engaged, may be properly 
treated as treason, and punished as the public good may require ; 
but Edmund Burke had exhausted argument on the subject in 
his memorable phrase, applied to the first American movement 
for independence : *I know not how an indictment against a whole 
people shall be framed.' 

"But for Mr. Lincoln's untimely death, Mr. Davis thought 
there could have been no question raised upon the subject. That 
event, more a calamity to the South than to the North, in the 
time and manner of its transpiring, had inflamed popular pas- 
sions to the highest pitch, and made the people of the section 
which had lost their chief now c-eek an equivalent in the life of 
the chief of the section conquered. This was an impulse of 
passion, not a conclusion which judgment or justice could sup- 
port. Mr. Lincoln through his entire ndministration, had ac- 
knowledged the South as a belligerent nationalitv, exchanging 
prisoners of war, establishing truces, and sometimes sending, 
sometimes receiving, propositions for peace. In the lastf of 
these occasions, accompanied by the chief member of his Cab- 
inet, he purposely met the commissioners appointed by the 
Southern States to negotiate, going half-way to meet them not 
far from where Mr. Davis now stood ; and the negotiations of 
Gen. Grant with Gen. Lee, just preceding the latter's surrender, 
most distinctly and clearly pointed to the promise of a general 
amnesty; Gen. Grant in his final letter, expressing the hope 
that, with Lee's surrender, all 'difficulties between the sections 
might be settled without the loss of another life,' or words to 
that effect." 

Following Dr. Craven we find that the health of Mr. Davis 
grew sensibly worse. Step by step the kind-hearted physician 
obtained an amelioration of the condition of the eminent pris- 
oner; but the severity of the treatment he had experienced in 
the early part of his confinement still told greatly on his health, 
and it can readily be appreciated how any confinement to a man 
in his physical and mental condition must have resulted unfa- 
vv>rablv to his health. Proceeding to follow Dr. Craven, we 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OP THE SOUTH 511 

extract passages from several interesting conversations had with 
the prisoner ; and we also quote from the worthy Doctor's 
daily diary, a few references to the physical condition and suf- 
fering of his illustrious patient : 

"June 8 — was called to the prisoner, whom I had not seen for 
a week. Found Mr. Davis relapsing, and very despondent. Com- 
plained again of intolerable pains in the head. Was distracted 
night and day by the unceasing tread of two sentinels in his 
room, and the murmur or gabble of the guard in the outside cell. 
He said his casement was well formed for a torture-room of 
the inquisition. Its arched roof made it a perfect whispering 
gallery, in which all sounds were jumbled and repeated. The 
torment of his head was so dreadful, he feared he must lose his 
mind. Already his memory, vision and hearing, were impaired. 
He had but the remains of one eye left, and the glaring white- 
washed walls were rapidly destroying this. He pointed to a 
crevice in the wall where his bed had been, explaining that he 
had changed it to the other side, to avoid the mephitic vapors. 

"Of the trial he had been led to expect, had heard nothing." 
This looked as if the indictments were to be suppressed, and 
the action of a Military Commission substituted, li so, they 
might do with him as they pleased, for he would not plead, but 
leave his cause to the justice of the future. As to taking his 
life, that would be the greatest boon they could confer on him, 
though for the sake of his family, he might regret the manner 
of its taking. 

"Mr. Davis remarked that when his tray of breakfast had 
been brought that morning, he overheard some soldiers in the 
guard-room commenting on the food given our prisoners durir.g 
the late war. To hold him responsible for this was worse than 
absurd — criminally false. For the last two years of the war, 
Lee's armv had never more than half, and was oftener on quar- 
ter rations of rusty bacon and corn. It was yet worse with 
other Southern armies when operating in sections which had 
been campaigned over any time. Sherman with a front thirty 
or forty miles, breaking into a new country, found no trouble 
in procuring food ; but had he halted anywhere, even for a single 
week, must have been starved. INIarching every day, his men 



512 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ate out a new section, and left behind them a starving wilder- 
ness. 

"Col. Northrop, his Commissary-General, had many difficul- 
ties to contend with; and, not least, the incessant hostility of 
certain opponents of his administration, who, by striking at 

Northrop, really meant to strike at him. Even General 

Otherwise so moderate and conservative, was finally induced 
to join this injurious clamor. There was food in the Confed- 
eracy, but no means for its collection, the holders hiding it 
after the currency had become depreciated; and, if collected, 
then became the difficulty of its transportation. Their railroads 
were overtaxed, and the rolling stock soon gave out. They 
could not fee their own troops ; and prisoners of war in all coun- 
tries and ages have cause of complaint. Some of his people 
confined in the west and at Lookout Point, had nearly starved 
at certain times, though he well knew, or well believed, full prison 
rations had been ordered and paid for in these cases. 

"Herd men together within an inclosure, their arms taken 
from them, their organization lost, without employment for 
their time, and you will find it difficult to keep them in good 
health. They were ordered to receive precisely the same ra- 
tions given to the troops guarding them ; but dishonest commis- 
saries and provost-marshals were not confined to any people. 
Doubtless the prisoners on both sides often sufifered, that the 
oflFicers having charge of them might grow rich ; but wherever 
such dishonesty could be brought home, proniipt punishment 
followed. Gen. Winder and Col. Northrop did the best they 
could, he believed ; but both were poorly obeyed or seconded 
by their subordinates. To hold him responsible for such un- 
authorized privations, was both cruel and absurd. He issued 
order after order on the subject ; and, conscious of the extreme 
difficulty of feeding the prisoners, made the most liberal offers 
for exchange — almost willing to accept any terms that would 
release his people from their burdens. Non-exchange, however, 
was the policy adopted by the Federal Government — just as 
Austria, in her late campaigns against Frederick the Great, re- 
fused to exchange ; her calculation being, that as her population 
was five times more numerous than Prussia's, the refusal to 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 513 

exchange would be a wise measure. That it may have been pru- 
dent, though inhuman, situated as the South was, he was not 
prepared to deny ; but protested against being held responsible 
for evils which no power could avert, and to escape from which 
almost any concessions had been offered. 

"Sunday July 11 — Was sent for by Mr. Davis. Found pris- 
oner very desponding, the failure of his sight troubling him, 
and his nights almost without sleep. His present treatment was 
killing him by inches, and he wished shorter work could be 
made of his torment. He had hoped long since for a trial, 
which should be pubb'c, and therefore with some semblance of 
fairness ; but hope deferred was making his heart sick. The 
odious, malignant, and absurd insinuations that he was con- 
nected in some manner with the great crime and folly of Mr. 
Lincoln's assassination, was his chief personal motive for so 
earnestly desiring an early opportunity of vindication. But 
apart from all this, as he was evidently made the representative 
in whose person the action of the seceding States was to be 
argued and decided, he yet more strongly desired for this rea- 
son to be heard in behalf of the defeated, but to him still sacred 
cause. The defeat he accepted, as a man has to accept all 
necessities of an accomplished fact ; but to vindicate the theory 
and justice of his cause, showing by the authority of the Con- 
stitution and the Fathers of the Country, that his people had 
only asserted a right — had committed no crime — this was his 
last remaining labor which life could impose on him as a public 
duty/' 

"Mr. Davis expressed some anxiety as to his present illness. 
He was not one of those who, when in trouble, wished to die. 
Great invalids seldom had this wish, save when protracted suf- 
fering had weakened the brain. Suicides were commonly of 
robuster class — men who had never been brought close to death 
nor thought much about it seriously. A good old Bishop once 
remarked, that 'dying was the last thing a man should think 
about,' and the mixture of wisdom and quaint humor in the 
phrase had impressed Mr. Davis. Even to Christians, with 
the hope of an immortal future for the soul, the idea of physical 
annihilation — of parting forever from the tenement of flesh in 



514 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

which we have had so many joys and sorrows — was one full of 
awe, if not terror. What it must be to the unbeliever, who 
entertained absolute and total annihilation as his prospect, he 
could not conceive. Never again to hear of wife or children, 
to take the great leap into vacuity, with no hope of meeting 
in a brighter and happier life the loved ones left behind, the 
loved ones gone before ! 

"He had more reasons than other men, and now more than 
ever, to wish for some prolongation of life, as also to welcome 
death. His intolerable sufferings and wretched state argued 
for the grave as a place of rest. His duties to the cause he 
had represented, and his family, made him long to be continued 
on the footstool, in whatever pain or misery, at least until by 
the ordeal of a trial he could convince the world he was not the 
monster his enemies would make him appear, and that no willful 
departure from the humanities of war had stained the escutcheon 
of his people. Errors, like all other men, he had committed ; 
but stretched now on a bed from which he might never rise, 
and looking with the eyes of faith which no walls could bar, 
up to the throne of Divine mercy, it was his comfort that no 
such crimes as men laid to his charge reproached him in the 
whispers of his conscience. 

" 'They charge me with crime. Doctor, but God knows my 
innocence. I endorsed no measure that was not justified by the 
laws of war. Failure is all forms of guilt in one to men who 
occupy my position. Should I die, repeat this for the sake of 
my people, my dear wife, and poor darling children. Tell the 
world I only loved America, and that in following my State I 
was only carrying out doctrines received from reverenced lips 
in my early youth, and adopted by my judgment as the convic- 
tions of riper years.' " . . . . 

"September 6 — Called upon Mr. Davis once or twice, I re- 
member between the interval of my last date and this, but 
have lost notes. Called today accompanied by Captain Titlow, 
officer-of-the-day, Third Pennsylvania Artillery, and found 
prisoner in more comfortable state of mind and body than he 
had enjoyed for some days. Healthy granulations forming 
in the carbuncle. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 515 

"Mr. Davis said the clamor about 'treason' in our Northern 
newspapers was only an evidence how little our editors were 
qualified by education for their positions. None seemed to re- 
member that treason to a State was possible, no less than to the 
United States ; and between the horns of this dilemma there 
could be little choice. In the North, where the doctrine of 
State Sovereignty was little preached or practiced, this diffi- 
culty might not seem so great ; but in the South a man had pre- 
sented the unpleasant alternatives of being guilty of treason to 
his State when it went out of the Union, by remaining what 
was called loyal to the Federal Government or being guilty of 
treason to the General Government by remaining faithful to his 
State. These terms appear to have little significance at the 
North, but were full of potency in the South ,and had to be 
regarded in every political calculation." 

"Dr. Craven's record of the Prison-IJfe of Mr. Davis continues 
until November 1865, when his earnest efiforts in behalf of 
his prisoner, so far excited the ire of the powers that be, that 
he was at first forbidden to hold any intercourse with the pris- 
oner, and afterward removed entirely. 

"But the treatment of Mr. Davis is now essentially changed. 
He has been removed to better quarters, is now supplied with 
adequate food, is allowed books, his family are permitted to 
see him, his friends' have access to him ; land his position 
in all things is now more nearly worthy the dignity of a great 
country, and suitable to his rank as an eminent State prisoner 
Slid not 2Z 1 convicted felon. 

"He and the country now await with interest his approaching 
trial. Thanks to the firmness of the President, the efforts of 
certain of the Radicals to bring him to a mock trial before a 
Military Commission, in which the result would be only a fore- 
gone conclusion, has been thwarted, and he will undergo a 
Constitutional trial before the highest tribunal in the country. 
It is feared, however, by some that the trial will never come 
off, but by one pretext or another, will be postponed from time 
to time, until the prisoner, harassed by hope deferred, and car- 
ried into a fatal illness by his confinement, will die." (What 
a commentary is this upon the corruption of the officials!) "A 



516 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

fair, searching, exhaustive trial, in which the doctrine of State 
Sovereignty shall receive ventilation and logical assertion it 
has never yet received in which the limitations and conditions 
of the Government, under the Constitution, shall be examined 
by an acumen and learning never yet brought to bear upon 
the subject, would be a trial not of Jefferson Davis, but of the 
Republican party and its acts; and this trial the leaders and 
controllers of that party dare not meet. They may feel some 
assurance in the fact, that a conspicuous member of this party 
will preside at the trial ; but the doctrine of State Sovereignty, 
if once authoritatively asserted by the Supreme Court, would 
palliate, if it did not justify secession, would render the present 
attitude of the party towards the Southern States untenable — 
would thwart and check their scheme for centralization — would 
establish the unconstitutionality of many of their laws effecting 
the status of the citizens of the several States — would overthrow 
their whole theory of the Union, their platforms, their logic 
and their ambitions, and reassert the old Jeffersonian landmarks 
and principles. Will they dare stand this test? They may, re- 
lying on the partisan proclivities of the Chief-Justice ; but men 
who have studied the Constitution of the United States and com- 
prehend its real significance and meaning, need not fear to see 
the doctrine of State Sovereignty under which the seceding 
States acted, brought to the tribunals of the Court, need not fear 
for a moment the triumphant issue of the attempt to try Jeffer- 
son Davis for treason." 

A few facts suggested by the foregoing should bj emphasized. 
His bed was only a fev; feet above the water level, and, on the 
damp side of the fortress, resulting in neuralgic disorders and 
rapidly failing health. The removal of the shackles was due 
to the activity of Dr. J. J. Craven, and not to locks having been 
put on doors. Davis was treated as a condemned convict while 
in the eyes of the law he was innocent till proved guilty. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE FAILURE TO TRY DAVIS AND ITS 
MEANING. 

As an introduction to this sham trial a concise review of a 
few facts may not be out of order, as his crued treatment af- 
firmed him many times guilty. 

On M,ay the 8th Gen. Minty ordered that every effort be 
made "to capture or kill Davis the rebel President." The next 
day Gen. Wilson notified Gen. Upton that President Johnson 
had offered $100,000 reward for the capture of Jefferson Da- 
vis," implicating him "upon indisputable evidence" in the as- 
sassination of Lincoln. Two days later, the 10th of May, Davis 
was captured at Irwinville, Ga., by Col. Pritchard, while sur- 
rounded by his family and a few friends thinking himself secure 
from arrest under the Sherman armistice. Some irresponsible 
person reported that he was arrested while attempting to escape 
disguised in female attire. Although the least investigation 
would have exposed its falsity, yet Gen. Wilson reported it to 
the War Department as a fact. It was a sweet morsel to Gen. 
Wilson, Gen. Stanton and his Assistant Secretary, Dana, Stanton 
displaying his pleasure by writing to the Rev. T. J. Breckin- 
bridge of Kentucky that "Mr. Davis was captured while trying 
to escape in his wife's clothes," and Dana showing his keen pleas- 
ure by ordering Col Pritchard to send him "the woman's dress 
in which Mr. Davis was captured." 

On the 19th day of May the William P. Clyde cast anchor 
in Hampton Roads. Jefferson Davis with other distinguished 
prisoners was on board. With his arm in the firm grasp of 
the gallant (?) Miles and surrounded by a strong guard Mr. 
Davis was escorted in style to his carefully prepared cell in 
fortress Monroe, the strongest fort on the American Continent. 
He was there incarcerated in a dungeon only a few feet above 
the water level of the bay. Such was the dampness that "mould 
covered his shoes," and such the darkness that a lighted lamp 
was necessary day and night; and as to ventilation the very 
conditions declared it the worst possible. In front of the pns- 



518 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

oner's pallet paced two sentinels night and day, the lamp brightly 
burning. Every fifteen minutes, or no less than 96 times in 
every 24 hours, a commissioned officer verified the prisoner's 
presence. As if all this torture was not enough, within less 
than five days after his imprisonment heavy iron shackles, "about 
five-eights of an inch thick," fresh from the anvil, were riveted 
to his ankles. Within less than five other days Dr. Craven was 
called upon to "pad" or "cushion" "the broad abrasions on his 
skin" made by the heavy irons. It was then Dr. Craven felt his 
"first thrill of sympathy" for his patient. 

The charge of murder having now been discarded as false, 
there remained only the charge of treason — a charge Davis was 
anxious to meet and the Government anxious to avoid. The 
great trouble was how to avoid it gracefully and without suspi- 
cion of blame. There stood the prisoner accused of treason, un- 
tried and uncondemned, yet treated as a convicted felon of 
the worst type. Expecting to be tried for his life, he was 
denied the necessary books and all other means of preparing for 
his defense. Friends were denied him. Even his wife was 
denied, not only his presence, but also the hospitality of both 
Virginia and Maryland. Confined for months in that damp, 
dark, unventilated dungeon, no friendly voice greeted him ex- 
cept as it came from the lips of Dr. Craven, his attending physi- 
cian ; and his sympathy cost him, by general order, no less 
than his official position. 

There is no lonesomeness so real as that of being alone while 
in the midst of an unsympathetic multitude. Here was Davis 
in a rock-ribbed prison, shackled and otherwise abused, with 
soldiers in front of him and soldiers behind him, soldiers to the 
right of him and soldiers to the left of him ; in the midst of a 
solemnity that was torture, and a monotony that was nerve- 
destroying; with the solemnity and monotony punctured only 
by the sound of the beating waves outside and that of the meas- 
ured steps of the silent sentinels within ; in a low down dungeon 
as incapable of being ventilated as his tormentors were of sym- 
pathy ; in an atmosphere as damp as the dampest and as dark 
as the darkest, and yet an atmosphere far more cruel than it 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 519 

was either damp or dark or both. Was ever lonesomeness 
greater than this? 

This was Davis's condition : — This his refined, condensed and 
prolonged torture. The wild and untutored savage knows how 
to torment and torture his victim. But the tortures of the sav- 
age are only temporary and as the mere scratch of a pin in 
comparison to the physical, mental, and soul-piercing tortures 
to which Mr. Davis for many long months was subjected. 

It was this worse than savage cruelty that first moved the 
heart of Dr. Craven to sympathy. It was this too that touched 
the heart of Dr. Cooper, his successor, with sympathy. It was 
this cruelty that awoke sympathy in the breasts of the brave 
sentinels and through them found an outlet. When once 
beyond the walls of the old fortress, whose silence was no longer 
possible, a chivalrous North and South caught the infection 
of sympathy and "commented severely on the treatment of the 
State prisoners, Davis and Clay.'' 

Gen. Miles, as if rebuked, in compliance with public sentiment 
was transferred to another post much against his will and earn- 
est protest. The administration began to relax. Even the Sec- 
retary of War was touched in a tender spot, and ordered 36 
dollars a month to be paid "for furnishing the prisoners — Davis 
and Clay — with such food as they require, and for the payment 
of the laundresses who do their washing." What a change was 
this ! What a power is public opinion when backed by a noble, 
patriotic and sympathetic press! Tigers were turned into 
lambs ! 

As the summer of 1866 grew apace, Davis and his family 
were reunited. They were given "rooms in Carroll Hall, a 
commodious house within the bounds of the fort," Davis was 
given the freedom of the place. "His friends came from Bal- 
timore, Washington and Richmond to pay their tribute of respect 
and devotion." What a pleasing contrast is this ! 

It seems cruel nov/ to turn our eyes again back to that very 
dark dungeon within a very dark dungeon. But it was in the 
midst of the deepest gloom 61 these two cells that a ray of 
hope came from an unexpected source to cheer the very lone- 
some and forlorn prisoner. It was in the shape of a note from 



520 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Charles O 'Conor of New York, the acknowledged head of the 
legal profession in the United States. That note was dated 
June 2, 1865. It was addressed to Jefferson Davis. As it sound- 
ed the first note of Davis' defense we give it here. 

It reads as follsw : 

"Gentlemen who have no personal acquaintance with yourself, 
and who never had any connection by birth, residence or other- 
wise with any of the Southern States, have requested me to 
volunteer as counsel for the defense, in case you should be ar- 
raigned upon an indictment which has been announced in the 
newspapers. No less in conformity with my own sense of pro- 
priety than in compliance with their wishes, I beg leave to tender 
my services accordingly. I will be happy to attend, at any 
time and place you may indicate, in order to confer with your- 
self or others in relation to the defense. The Department of 
War having given its assent to the transmission of this letter 
through the proper military authorities, I infer that if my pro- 
fessional aid be accepted, you will have full permission to con- 
fer with me in writing and orally at personal interviews, as 
you may judge desirable." 

This letter must have awakened in Mr. Davis every emotion 
of gratitude. It made it clear to him and the Administration 
that others than Southerners stood at his back ready to defend 
him. The natural impulse of Mr. Davis, prompted him to an- 
swer this note at once. But he had neither paper, pen, nor 
ink. 

The handv/riting on the wall was seen. There was quaking 
in the knees. The clock of caution had struck the momentous 
hour. The responsibility of furnishing Mr. Davis with ithe 
necessary paper, pen and ink was too great for the politic Miles. 
Hence on the 6th of June, he telegraphed Gen. Townsend as 
follows: "General, shall I furnish Jefferson Davis with writing 
material to answer Mr. Q'Conor's letter?" Gen. Townsend 
replied: "The Secretary of War says you may furnish suf- 
ficient for the specific purpose." (121 War of Rebellion 642.) 

Mr. Davis' letter in reply was rejected by Mr. Stanton, 
Mr. Seward and Mr. Speed as "an improper communication." 
Mr. Davis struck out 'the improper language" and again it 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 521 

was rejected. If any reply ever reached Mr. O'Conor the 
records do not disclose the fact. (121 War of Rebellion 655-7), 
What did it mean? What could it mean? 

As we have seen in the previous chapter an effort was made 
to try Mr. Davis by a military commission, but was early aban- 
doned by all the officials except Gen. Holt, the Judge Advocate. 
Accordingly it was arranged that Mr. Davis should be "mdicted 
at the May term (1865) of the United States Court at Norfolk 
over which Judge Underwood was to preside. This was to be 
done, despite the fact that the Judge had previously been of 
the opinion that 'rebellion' had become a civil war of too great 
proportions to make it proper and expedient to indict its le? ders 
for treason." He was nevertheless indicted by this same Judge 
Underwood, and the District Attorney at once moved for a 
bench warrant, which was refused. Why? Amid the doubts 
and fears and confusions of the Court an elephant confronted 
them. The indictment was lost but the huge elephant remained 
in the shape of the Constitution — too large to lose. 

"An indictment against Mr. Davis was also found in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia." But it, like the one at Norfolk, was also 
consigned to oblivion. 

On the 10th of August President Johnson asked Chief Justice 
Chase for a conference in reference to the "time, place, and man- 
ner of the trial of Jefferson Davis." What took place in that 
conference has never been divulged, (121 War of Rebillion 715- 
16.) The conditions were nervous. 

On the 21st day of September, 1865, the Senate asked the 
President for information on the trial of Jefferson Davis, but 
the President was silent for three months and sixteen days, wait- 
ing till the 7th of January, 1866. It was then decided ( ?) 
that he should be tried in the State of Virginia, and that the 
Chief Justice should preside. But the Chief Justice refused to 
hold the Court, for reasons of his own. 

A general outcry was heard against the unconstitutional delay 
of the trial. The Senate becoming impatient under the influ- 
ence of this outcry, nine days later (January 16) called on 
the President for the correspondence between himself and the 
Chief Justice. From that correspondence it was learned that 



522 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the Chief Justice was unwilHng to hold Court so long as mar- 
tial law prevailed in Virginia. Who does not know that the 
power that called the martial law into existence would have an- 
nulled it? Why should a local martial law interfere with a 
civil case of concern to the entire nation ? // was anything for 
an excuse. 

Thus delay followed delay with no plausible excuse. The 
real excuse was withheld. It was the Constitution. It stood 
a mighty bulwark of defence in favor of the accused. The North 
had waged war against the South on the ground that secession 
was unconstitutional and hence rebellious. Now that the ques- 
tion is about to be submittd to the highest tribunal of the Nation 
the Administration shrinks from the trial. If Davis should be 
acquitted, the great responsibility of that stupendous war with 
all its death record, with all its sorrows, its hardships, its de- 
struction of property, and disorganization of society, would be- 
long to the Republican party and the Administration. More 
than that, all the wrongs saddled upon the leaders of the South 
in the name of the Constitution would be laid at the same door. 
More still, all the false representations of the Governmental of- 
ficials to foreign nations would constitute one of the blackest 
pages in all the deceptive records that distinguished that unjust 
war from beginning to end. So long as the voice of the Courts, 
the great Civil tribunals that should have settled all questions of 
disputes between the two sections, was silenced by war's usur- 
pations, tyranny was bold and rampant. But now all the forces 
at the back of tyranny and usurpation are scattered. Civil law 
again reigns supreme. The Courts again have come into their 
own, and judges unterrified again represent the majesty of the 
law. But the authors of that war are still in control of the 
executive department of the Government. They have virtually 
sworn that a decision, involving the justice of that war, shall 
never be rendered by the highest court tribunal in the world. 
Knowing in 1861, that the Law and the Constitution and the 
Right were on the side of the South, they dissembled, and in- 
augurated war. Now that the war is over, and the one eminent 
and distinguished representative of the cause of the South is 
clamorous and anxious for a trial they again dissemble. They 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 523 

proclaim the righteousness of their cause by the exercise of the 
basest cruelty, the only test they dare give of the justice of the 
cause they espoused. 

Because of unconstitutional delays and unconstitutional pro- 
ceedings, men of all parties and all sections begin to demand "the 
discharge of Davis from custody either on bail or on parole." 

Gen. Bradly Johnson has given a report of the trial ( ?) of 
Mr. Davis in which he details the slow process of obtaining 
a trial, and gives a summary of the reasons prepared by Charles 
O'Conor why Mr. Davis should not be tried for treason. 
(Chase's Circuit Court Reports). 

Gen. Johnson is authority that what was said or done by 
each actor was submitted to him for his approval, and was not 
published until corrected by him. The report is therefore doubly 
valuable. 

The following is a quotation from Mr. O'Conor's reasons 
why Mr. Davis should not be tried for treason : 

"When rebels and traitors oppose their Government by open 
violence and are summarily put down, those not slain in the 
combat may fairly be tried for treason in the civil courts and 
dealt with as ordinary criminals. The transaction constitutes 
only a species of riot. But far different results ensue when 
rebellion maintains itself so long and so effectively as to compel 
between itself, its people, and its territory, on the one hand, 
and the lawful Government on the other, the institution and ac- 
ceptance of rules and usages which obtain in regular wars be- 
tween independent nations. Amongst men claiming to have at- 
tained a high civilization, war is recognized as a State or condi- 
tion governed by law. In its conduct or at its close, sight is 
not lost of mortality or justice. If successful the rebels acquire 
the power of establishing an independent State, which all men 
regard as not only legitimate, but honorable in its origin ; if they 
fail, the victor may be as indulgent as he will, or, as far as he 
dare, may consecrate to his revenge the field of his ruin. What- 
ever severity can be justified at the bar of public opinion may 
be practiced ; and certainly no more should be exercised. To 
the latter proposition every magnanimous spirit will assent. 
Washington might have failed ; Kosciusko did fail. 



524 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

After an open territorial war of this kind had 
existed for four years, it might be thought by some that the 
rebels were still criminal violators of municipal law, and that 
they ought to be dealt with as such. By way of reasoning it 
might be urged that the extent of their operations merely in- 
tensihed their guilt, and should not in any way affect the ques- 
tion. But this reasoning, if such it may be called, proves too 
much. On the fall of the rebellious State, after sustaining a 
belligerent attitude for one hundred years, its chiefs and leaders 
might with equal propriety be brought to trial as traitors in 
civil courts, although they and their ancestosr had for several 
generations been uniformly regarded and treated as public ene- 
mies, carrying on war against the ultimate victor, a regular 
national war. This can not be admitted. The law of nature 
forbids it; and there are broad and comprehensible doctrines de- 
ducible from the universal practice of nations which forbid it. 
And these doctrines are founded in necessity. 

3jc :^ 5jc ^ :^ ^ 

"These views induced the belief that Jefferson Davis could 
not lawfully be convicted of treason, and to compass his death 
by means of a civil trial, judgment and execution, would be 
disgraceful to those who administered the Government and dis- 
creditable to our own people. Therefore, gentlemen at the North 
entertaining strong opinions against the right and act of secession 
united in requesting counsel to interpose a defence should any- 
thing of the kind be attempted." (Chase's Reports, pp. 12, 14, 
17), 

Mr. O'Conor does not base this defence on the right of se- 
cession, for it was not necessary, and would have been impo- 
litic under the circumstances, but on the ground that the South 
"had compelled the institution and acceptance of the rules and 
usages which obtain in regular wars between independent na- 
tions." The Government either knew or -lid not know that 
"amongst men claiming to have attained to a high state of civ- 
ilization, war is recognized as a state or condition governed 
by law." If the Government knew this, it wa'; willfully cruel 
and savagely unrelenting, and deserved all the condemnation 
civilization has heaped upon it. If the Government did not 



Mi 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 525 

know this, the fact proves an inexcusable ignorance and entitles 
it to the condemnation of the civilized world. It also shows 
that just as ignorance of the Constitution inaugurated the war, 
so now ignorance of the rules and usages of war between civ- 
ilized communities, and of what constitutes treason, was dis- 
gracing the Government, and through the Government the na- 
tion, by its savage-like unrelenting cruelty to the most distin- 
guished representative of a defeated Government that had in 
good faith laid down its arms Between knowledge and ignor- 
ance, it is perhaps more charitable to place the mantle of ignor- 
ance over the causes that led to so much bloodshed, to so much 
devastation, and to such unparallelled cruelty, than to attribute 
it to willful violation of law and of the usages of war between 
civilized people. 

It is however difficult to understand how the United States 
Government- could have been ignorant of the "broad and com- 
prehensible doctrines deducible from the universal practice of 
nations" — "doctrines founded in necessity." Northern states- 
men knew "that Jefiferson Davis could not lawfully be convicted 
of treason, and to compass his death by means of a civil trial, 
judgment and execution would be disgraceful to those who ad- 
ministered the Government and discreditable to our people." Why 
should not Johnson and his Cabinet have known it? We are 
facing facts pregnant with meaning. Who can interpret them 
to the honor and glory of this great American Republic ? 

If it would have been disgraceful to have thus compassed 
the death of Mr. Davis, was it not equally as disgraceful to have 
incarcerated, shackled and otherwise treated him as a criminal ? 

On the 8th of May 18C6, an indictment was found against 
Jefferson Davis in the Circuit Court of the United States for 
the District of Columbia. It presented.... 

"Jefferson Davis late of the city of Richmond in the county 
of Henrico, in the District of Virginia, aforesaid, yeoman, be- 
ing an inhabitant of and residing within the United Statrs of 
America, not having the fear of God before his eyes, nor weigh- 
ing the duty of his said allegiance, but being moved by the in- 
stigation of the Devil, and wickedly devising, intending the 
peace and tranquility of the United States of America to disturb 



526 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and the Government of the United States of America to sub- 
vert, and to stir, and move, and incite insurrection, rebellion 
and war against the United States of America, on the 15th day 
of May 1864 in the city of Richmond," etc. 

What an indictment is this! It favors the theory of ignor- 
ance on the part of the Government. Examine its dite — 8th 
of May 1866. Note the date on vi^hich Davis "moved by the 
instigation of the Devil;" and without "the fear of God before 
his eyes," wickedly devised and intended to disturb the peace 
and subvert the Government," and to stir, and move and incite 
insurrection, rebellion and war against the United States." It 
was on the 15th dav of May 1864, more than three years after 
the secession of the States. Were the two battles of Manassas 
no rebellion? Was McClelland's Peninsular Campaign waged 
against no rebellion? Did Lee force McClelland to seek the 
cover of his gunboats without being guilty of rebellion ? Did 
Johnston win the battle of Shiloh without being guilty of re- 
bellion? Did Lee march his invincibles into Maryland and 
Pennsylvania, striking terror to the heart of Washington, and 
yet was not guilty of rebellion? The great war, called the re- 
bellion, was about three years old on the 15th day of May, 1864. 
Was it miscalled rebellion up to that time? Why name the 15th 
day of May as the peculiar day on which Davis was possessed 
of the Devil? The 15th day of May, 1864, and the 8th day of 
May, 1866, are witnesses in favor of the theory of ignorance 
on the part of the Government, and yet their testimony smacks 
of the incredible. Did the Government actually intend to say 
Davis committed treason on the 15th day of May, 1864, and 
that he was guilty of treason on the 8th day of May, 1865? 
Let him who would have an answer consult the facts. 

On the 5th day of June, 1866, Messrs. James T. Brady, of 
New York, William B. Read of Philadelphia, James Lyon and 
Robert Ould of Richmond appeared in the Court for the city 
of Richmond as counsel for Mr. Davis, and through Mr. Read 
in very terse and clear language asked the Court what was to 
be done with the indictment, and whether it was to be tried. This 
last question, he said, he probably had no right to ask, but he 
claimed the right to that speedy and public trial guaranteed 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 527 

by the Constitution, and wanted to know when and where that 
trial was to be had?' 

Note the facts: "Major J. S. Hennessy, the Assistant United 
States Attorney for the District, rephed that Mr. Chandler, the 
District Attorney, was absent, and he was not prepared to an- 
swer." Why was not Mr. Chandler there? If he knew he 
could not be present why had he not instructed Major Hennes- 
sy, his assistant? 

The matter was laid over till the next morning. Note the 
facts. When the next morning came Mr. Chandler was still 
absent. But Mr Hennessy read a paper in which he set forth 
that Mr. Davis was not in the custody of the Court, and was 
beyond its control ; that the District Attorney was so much en- 
gaged with official duties that he could not attend ; and thirdly 
that Mr. Davis was too unwell to stand a long trial at that sea- 
son of the year. For these reasons he moved the Court to lay 
the matter over until the first Monday in next October." 

"Mr. Brady replied that it was true that in a technical sense, 
Mr. Davis was not in the custody of the Court, but that was a 
plea for Mr. Davis to make if he wanted delay. On the con- 
trary he waived any such plea and demanded a speedy trial ; 
and that as to the heat of the weather, Mr. Davis could stand it 
in Richmond as well as at Fortress Monroe, and his counsel 
would willingly serve him mider any conditions." 

Here stands a prisoner to whom the Constitution grants a 
speedy trial. Yet, as we see, the most flimsy excuses are given 
by the prosecution for delay. The prosecution at last found out 
that Davis was sick, and in the name of sympathy pleaded for 
him to be longer imprisoned in fortress Monroe. What duty 
could the prosecuting Attorney, Chandler, have had more im- 
portant than trying a man, charged with treason, "instigated by 
the Devil?" Yet he was "so much engaged (?) with official 
duties that he could not attend the trial !" 

Judge Underwood stated that the Chief Justice^ was to preside 
at the trial and that he could not be present until the first l^ues- 
day in October, to which day the cause was adjourned. The 
United States judges and United States officials must have agreed 



528 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

with Thad Stevens in the opinion that "there is no Constitu- 
tion." 

"On the 7th of June (next day) Messers. Charles O'Conor of 
New York, Thomas G. Piatt, ex-Governor of Maryland, repre- 
senting Mr. Davis; and Mr. Speed the Attorney General repre- 
senting the Government, waited on Chief Justice Chase at his 
residence to ascertain whether he would entertain a motion to 
release Mr. Davis on bail. The Chief Justice, without any for- 
mal application for bail, announced that he considered it im- 
proper for him to act in this matter so long as the State of 
Virginia was under military rule ; and that he would not act 
until the writ of Habeas Corpus was fully restored, and martial 
law abrogated. His opinion on this subject is set out in full 
in Gen. Johnson's report : 

"Mr. O'Conor and Mr. Shea of New York, as counsel for 
Mr. Davis, also made application subsequently to Judge Under- 
wood in the Attorney General's office in Washington. He also 
declined on the same grounds as those given by Judge Chase. 
The President, the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, and 
Judge Underwood all intimated their desire to grant the release, 
but each found some refined Constitutional objection to gratify 
their wishes, and the result of their self-denial was that Mr. 
Davis remained in custody." (The Trial & Trials of Jeffer- 
son Davis, pp. 5-6.) 

The report of the Committee, headed by Col. Turner, to which 
we have referred, stated that no further legislation was necessary 
to aid the courts in bringing Davis to trial, and that it was the 
duty of the Executive Department of the Government to do so. 
Therefore the Executive inquired of the Attorney General what 
yet remained for him to do that Mr. Davis might be tried. The 
answer of the Attorney General was made on the 12th of Oc- 
tober. In it he said to the President, "It was only necessary for 
him to order the keeper of the Fort Monroe jail to deliver Mr. 
Davis up to the Marshal of the District of Virginia on proper 
application." 

But the Attorney General set forth many reasons why the 
Court could not sit, why it had not convened on the 6th of Octo- 
ber, to which day it had adjourned ; that by an act of Congress 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 529 

the Court to be held in Richmond was to convene on the 1st 
Monday in May and 4th Monday in November; and that this 
act of Congress abrogated the special term fixed for October. 
It was further held that Congress had changed the judicial cir- 
cuits; and that this change required a new allotment which only 
the Supreme Court could make, and not by this Court till it 
met. During all these intrigues and excuses, Davis was a pris- 
oner in Fortress Monroe anxiously demanding a trial as his 
absolute rfght under the terms of the Constitution. 

Chas. M. Blackford an eminent Virginia lawyer, in an address 
on "The Trials and Trial of Jefferson Davis," delivered in 1900 
before the annual meeting of the Virginia Bar Association, com- 
menting on the expressions of desire by the officials to see jus- 
tice done while "something always rose to prevent their carrying 
out their philanthropic wishes," used these very pertinent words : 
"The historian of the future with all the light which will then 
illun:ine his research, will tear away the flimsy veil and show 
that Mr. Davis was so long kept in confinement to gratfiy the 
personal bitterness of men who had once been his associates, 
and well knew the dignity and purity of his character." 

The civilization of the United States blushes for the civil Gov- 
ernment of our country when the humanity of its officials is com- 
pared with that of the commanding officers of the military de- 
partments. Grant was generous and merciful to an extreme. His 
noble soul knew no other impulse. Sherman was equally noble- 
hearted and generous as Grant, giving "amnesty to all persons 
both military and civil." When Johnston and Breckinridge and 
Reagan called his attention to these particular words, he replied, 
"I mean just that," adding "it is the only way to have perfect 
peace." Sherman and Grant were statesmen in comparison with 
whom President Johnson and his Cabinets were pigmies in offi- 
cial garb. When you touch the chords of nobility of soul you 
awake vibrations that charm the Southerner's heart. Sheridan 
and Thomas had kindred hearts to those of Grant and Sherman. 
It was so with all the field officers of the Union army with only 
a very few exceptions. Notable among the exceptions is Gen. 
Miles, and he perhaps did not appreciate the true character and 
the true dignity of an American military officer. Elevated from 



530 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

a clerkship in a Boston mercantile house to the rank of General, 
he lost his head and was bigoted, fanatical, intolerant and ex- 
tremely cruel. Mercy, justice and respect characterized the mil- 
itary commanders as a rule. They had stood where hate had no 
foothold, and had measured swords with an enemy whose chiv- 
alry they honored. Chivalry is the same exalted principle upon 
whichever side it stands. The brave are tender and compas- 
sionate. In the first battle of Cold Harbor a Confederate Lieu- 
tenant in the front line of a charging column approaching a 
wounded soldier in blue, hurriedly transferred his own canteen 
full of water to that of his wounded enemy and passed en in 
the victorious charge, followed by the benedictions of the soldier 
in blue. Less than 48 hours previous this same Lieutenant had 
bent over the dying form of d brave brother on the field of 
battle. Compare this act with that of Seward when asked by 
Davis's attorneys for Zissistance. Pointing to the scar on his 
neck, made by the assassin's knife, he said "You hardly expect 
me to aid yon." 

On the 20th of May, 1866 Surgeon Cooper's reports as to 
the health of Mr. Davis were made public. They created an 
indignation which found voice in the newspapers of all parties 
and all sections. We quote but a word from the New York 
World in its comment on this report as a specimen : "The 
American people, should these stories prove true, will have a 
serious account to settle with the functionaries who could thus 
misrepresent and belittle them in the eyes of Christendom and 
of history." 

Similar articles appeared in other newspapers of all sections, 
condemning the refusal of the common courtesies of life to a 
man "who for four years wielded the resources of eleven bellig- 
erent States against the whole power of the Union." 

Thus the functionaries in charge of the Government at Wash- 
ington were condemned in most bitter and most unrelenting 
terms, while the military officers, as a rule, presented untarnished 
shields to the light of civilization. The chivalry of the South 
delights in honoring a magnanimous chivalry of soul in the 
army of the North. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 531 

We shall now quote freely from the "Trial and Trials of 
Jefferson Davis" by Chas. M. Blackford, the gifted Virginia 
lawyer. 

"On the first day of May, 1867, Judge Underwood opened 
the Circuit Court of the United States at Richmond, when George 
Shea, of New York, as counsel for Mr. Davis, filed a petition 
for habeus corpus. It was granted, and on the 10th was served 
on Brigadier-General Henry S. Burton, successor of Gen. Miles 
as commandant at Fort Monroe, who after obtaining the per- 
mission of the President, brought Mr. Davis to Richmond. 

"Deep anxiety was felt about the trial, which, it was believed, 
would begin on Monday, the 13th of May. On that day the 
streets were filled with nervous people and great crowds sur- 
rounded and packed the stairway and passages of the Custom 
House where the Court room is situated. Mr. Davis, his coun- 
sel and Gen. Burton and his staff were at the Spottswood Hotel. 
The Court was to sit at eleven o'clock, but long before that time 
many persons had secured positions in the Court-room by per- 
mits issued by the marshal. In this way seats were secured 
for a few ladies, the reporters and a number of distinguished 
visitors. 

"A few minutes before eleven the counsel for the defense en- 
tered the Court-room. They were a very distinguished group : 
Mr. Charles O'Conor, the leader of the bar in the United 
States ; William B. Read, of Philadelphia ; George Shea of New 
York, both high in the ranks of their profession ; John Randolph 
Tucker, already distinguished as a Constitutional lawyer and 
late Attorney General of Virginia ; Robert Ould, the most skill- 
ful debater and logical speaker of his day, and Mr. James Lyons, 
who had long been prominent in the courts of this State. 

"It is seldom that any case has brought together a more dis- 
tinguished array. The Government was represented by Mr. 
Evarts, the Attorney General of the United States, also a leader 
of the bar of New York, and a man of learning, high culture and 
refinement ; Mr. Chandler, a northern resident of Virginia, who 
could take the iron-clad oath, was District Attorney. Besides 
the Counsel engaged in the case there were a number of other 
men of mark, both civil and military ; among them may be men- 



532 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tioned Judge J. A. Meredith, the Irish patriot; Gustavus A. 
Meyers, and Generals Schofield, Granger, Brown, Imboden, John 
Minor Botts. A few moments before the clock struck eleven 
the large doors were thrown open and the crowd rushed in and 
filled every spot outside the bar. At eleven Horace Greely 
entered the room, and there was a buzz of interest. The ob- 
ject of his visit was known, and excited much good-feeling to- 
ward him, which was exhibited by kindly comment from the 
crowd and many cordial shakes of the hand by men inside the 
bar. 

"When. Judge Underwood came in, the proclamation was 
made. After the proclamation there was a hush of expectation 
and all eyes strained to catch the first glimpse of the distinguished 
prisoner. As said before, he was at the Spottswood Hotel, in 
front of which a vast crowd was gathered to see him come out. 
Carriages were arranged in front of the hotel as if to take him 
and his party, but to avoid the crowd the proprietor had caused 
a coach to be brought into the court-yard in the rear, and while 
the crowd were standing expectant in front, Mr. Davis, Gen. 
Burton, Dr. Cooper, of the United States army, and Mr. Burton 
Harrison got into the carriage and were driven rapidly by a 
circuitous route to the Custom House. The crowd did not dis- 
cover that they had been outwitted until he had reached his des- 
tination. 

"On the arrival of the party at the Custom House they were 
taken to the conference room by a private way and thence at 
once entered the court room, where he was escorted by Gen. 
Burton to a comfortable chair with more of the manner of a 
sympathizing friend than that of his keeper. Mr. Davis was 
much worn and showed the marks of extreme feebleness, but 
he looked cheerful and bright and bowed to his many friends 
and shook hands with a few who were nearest. 

"As soon as he had taken his seat Judge Underwood, who 
was incapable of appreciating the dignity of his official position, 
said, turning to the United States army officers who were pres- 
ent, 'The court is honored on this occasion by the presence of 
so many of the nation's noblest and bravest defenders that the 
usual morning routine will be omitted.' The sentiment so far 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 533 

as it refers to the spectators, is unobjectionable, but its utter- 
ance on such an occasion has no parallel in judicial conduct 
since Jeffries held his court at Taunton. 

"Gen. Burton then presented Mr. Davis to the Court in obedi- 
ence to the writ of habeas corpus. In reply the judge tendered' 
him the thanks of the Court "for his prompt and graceful obedi- 
ence to its writ. He has thus added another to the many laurels 
he has gained upon the battle-fields of his country." Imagine 
Chief Justice Marshall, who once presided in the same Court in 
a great trial for treason, effusively tendering his thanks to any 
one who obeyed the mandate of his writ. Inter arma silent leges 
had so long been the prevailing condition in the land that this 
abasement of the ermine attracted no attention. 

"After this display of gratitude, the judge declared that the 
prisoner ihad now 'passed under the protection of American Re- 
publican law' and was in the custody of the marshal. 

"What species of law that was it is hard to explain, and when 
it is remembered that, though ever clamoring for his constitu- 
tional right to a speedy trial, it was over three years before it 
was awarded him, the difficulty in understanding him is in- 
creased. 

"The prisoner having thus passed from the control of martial 
law into that of this 'republican law,' Mr. O'Conor announced 
that the defense was ready and desired a trial. To this Mr. 
Evarts replied that the case would not be heard at that term, 
to which, of course, the judge assented. Motion for bail was 
then made, and by the practical consent of the prosecution it was 
granted and the penalty was fixed at $100,000, but this was not 
effected until Judge Underwood had interpolated a stump speech, 
lauding the Government of the United States and the beneficence 
of its administration. 

"The bail-bond in the usual form of such bonds was theit' 
given. The sureties were Horace Greely, Augustus Schill, Horace 
F. Clark, Gerrit Smith, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, of New York; 
Welch and David K. Jackman, of Philadephia; R. Barton Haxall, 
Isaac Davenport, Abraham Warwick, Gustavus A. Meyers, John 



534 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Minor Botts, Thomas W. Doswell, James Thomas, Thomas 
Price, and several others of Virgina. 

"When the bond was duly executed, the marshal was directed 
to discharge the prisoner, which was done amid deafening ap- 
plause. 

"The streets around the Custom House were crowded with 
people awaiting the result. As soon as the decision was announced 
someone ran to the main street window of the Custom House 
and shouted 'The President is bailed !' A mighty roar of ap- 
plause went up from the people below, which was taken up and 
echoed and re-echoed from street to street and house to house, 
though strange to say a considerable period of time elapsed be- 
fore the crowd on the Bank street were informed of the result, 
then they joined most heartily in the shouts. A company of 
United States infantry had been brought up to the door of the 
Custom House when Mr. Davis was carried in by Gen. Burton. 
No one has ever yet known what became of them. They van- 
ished in the uproar, doubtless rejoicing that they were relieved 
of the ignoble function which had been assigned to them, as 
jailers. 

"Some time elapsed before the bond was signed and the order 
of release was entered. Then Mr. Davis left the room, and with 
Mr. O'Conor on one side and Mr. Ould on the other, came out 
of the Custom House door on Bank Square. They were greeted 
with a sound which was not a cheer or hurrah, but that fierce 
yell which was first heard at Manassas, and had been the note 
of victors at Cold Harbor, at Chancellorsville, the \\'ilderness, 
and wherever battle was fiercest. 

"The trio got into an open carriage and drove to the Spotts- 
w^ood Hotel, at the corner of Main and Eighth Streets. As they 
moved amidst the rejoicing crowd, the rebel yell was their only 
applause, their happiest greeting. It was the outburst of brave 
men who could best give their expression to their indignation 
for what was past and their joy for the present. 

'^As the carriage approached the hotel, all sounds ceased, and 
a deep and solemn silence fell upon the crowd, less demonstra- 
tive than yell, but more tender in its sympathy. As Mr. Davis 
stood up in the carriage, preparatory to alighting, a stentorian 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 535 

voice, 'Hats off, Virginians', and five thousand bare-headed men 
did homage to him who had suffered for them, and with moisten- 
ed eyes and bated breath, stood silent and still until their repre- 
sentative entered the hotel. 

''The treatment which the Federal Government had imposed 
upon Mr. Davis had made him a martyr; the applause was an 
attestation of that fact. Around the court-room were thousands 
of men who met danger and suffered loss. Each man felt that 
Davis had suffered vicariously for him. If Davis was a traitor, 
so was he. If Davis should suffer the penalties of law, so should 
he. This it was which made the feeling so intense. 

"The Southern people had profound respect for Mr. Davis per- 
sonally because of his pure character and intellectural abilities, 
but for him there was no such deep and abiding devotion as for 
Lee and many of the other military chieftans. Mr. Davis im- 
personated their failure; the Generals their brilliant success as 
long as success was possible. But when the victors charged him 
falsely with crimes abhorent to his nature, put him under ward 
and manacled him as a felon, and then indicted him as a traitor, 
he became their martyred hero, and history will so record him." 

What did the Athenians gain by putting Socrates to death? 
They but rendered him doubly immortal and endeare<l his name 
to all races and all times. What did the Samoans gain by burn- 
ing P>i:hagoras at the stake? The light of that fire is as en- 
during as that of the sun. What did the Jews gain by the cruci- 
fixion of Christ? His is the one name which marks the center 
of time. What did the Federal Government gain by their savage 
treatment of Davis? They have but immortalized him and his 
cause. They have but given him a name that will rank with the 
best, the noblest, and the greatest of any age. Injustice and 
hate are mere shadows of a day, but principles are eternal, and 
their might and their light, though often overwhelmed and 
crushed, never die. The chivalry of the eleven States, at the 
head of which stood their "uncrowned king," their vicarious 
martyr, will grow in admiration and luster as the ages add to 
the circles of time. 

"At the November term, 1867, Mr. Evarts, the Attorney Gen- 
eral, was present, representing the prosecution before Jtidge 



536 RICHAKDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

Underwood. Mr. Davis, through his counsel, was ready, earn- 
estly demanding a trial. 

"The Government asked that the trial be put off until the 
succeeding March to suit the convenience of the Chief Justice. 
The defense was anxious for Judge Chase to preside, so it con- 
sented to the delay. 

"On the 26th day of March, 1868, a new indictment was found 
against the prisoner charging him in many counts with many 
acts of treason, conspicuous among which was 'conspiring with 
Robert E. Lee, J. P. Benjamin, John C. Breckinridge, William 
Malone, H. A. Wise, John Letcher, William Smith, Jubal A. 
Early, James Longstreet, William H. Payne, D. H. Hill, A. P. 
Hill, G. T. Beauregard, W. H. C. Whiting, Ed Sparrow, Samuel 
Cooper, Joseph E. Johnston, J. B. Gordon, C. F. Jackson, F. O. 
Moore, and with other persons whose names are to the grand 
jury unknown, to make war against the United States ; fighting 
the battle of Manassas, appointing one Giradi, then acting as Cap- 
tain, to command a brigade, and one Mahone, to be Major- 
General ; fighting a battle near Petersburg in company with R. E. 
Lee and others, and another at Five Forks, all of which things 
were done traitorously, unlawfully, maliciously and wickedly.' 

"The various historic acts, styled crimes in this lengthy docii- 
ment, were proved before the grand jury by the following wit- 
nesses summoned for the purpose: R. E. Lee, James A. Seddon, 
C. B. Duffield, John Letcher, G. Wyther Munford, John B. 
Baldwin, Charles E. Wortham, and Thomas S. Haygood." 

Is there nothing in the fact that no less than twenty illustrious 
names besides that of the prisoner are charged with the same 
crime of treason, and yet not one of them is arraigned before 
the Court? Does not this fact alone bear evidence that the 
whole trial is a farce ? Yea, more than this — R. E. Lee, the most 
eminent citizen of his century, if not of the age, is charged with 
the same crime, and yet was summoned as a witness in the case. 
A man whose virtues equaled, if they did not excel, his courage 
and skill on the field of battle, charged with the crime of treason, 
was called from his own free pursuits of high and noble purpose 
to testify against himself. Was ever a farce like this? Why 
did not that grand jury summon the Constitution? That would 



RICHAKDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 537 

have been summoning the immortal framers of that instrument 
from their graves, who "though dead yet speak." That was the 
last witness they wished to hear. 

"On the finding of this indictment the trial was continued 
until the the 2nd day of May, 1868, then to the 3rd day of June, 
and then again until the fourth Monday in November, when it 
was arranged that the Chief Justice should be present. This 
date was again changed to the 3rd of December in the same year." 

What did all these changes mean but a solemn, a fixed, and a 
heart-and-head conviction of the innocence of Davis as to the 
charge of treason? 

"During this delay the fourteenth amendment to the Constitu- 
tion was adopted and became a part of the organic law of the 
land. The third section of that article reads as follows : 

" 'No person shall be Senator or Representative in Congress, 
or elector of President or Vice-President, or hold any office, civil 
or military, under the United States, who, having previously 
taken oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the 
United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an 
executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Con- 
stitution of the Unted States, shall have engaged in insurrection 
or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the 
enemies thereof; but Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of 
each House, remove such disability.' " 

This was a very sweeping clause. Ingenuity could not have 
made it more so. It assumed that we Confederates were all 
guilty of rebellion, and hence of treason. Had it been as correct 
in its assumptions as it was sweeping in its exclusive details, 
Davis and all of us should have been hung. But with all the 
painstaking of its authors, this very amendment was made the 
basis of quashing the indictment against Davis. And a very 
peculiar fact about it is, that the suggestion was made to Davis's 
counsel by the Chief justice of the United States. That high 
official knew Davis was :iot guilty of treason. He knew that 
ignorant and rash officials had compromised the dignity and 
honor of the Ccvernment, and had involved the Governm'^:i*. in 
complications of the most serious character. He had called to 
his aid the ablest lawyers of the North, and the more light that 



538 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

was focused en the subject, the clearer was the proof that the 
South had the Constitution on her side. Doubtless all the delays 
and all the postponements in this so-called trial were due to the 
fact that the Supreme Court of the Nation was nervously and 
constantly in search of some plausible ground on which to release 
Davis. The eagle eye of the Chief Justice at last found it in this 
amendment. 

Davis as a member of Congress had in 1845 taken the oath 
to support the Constitution of the United States, "and had after- 
wards engaged in insurrection and rebellion, as charged in the 
indictment. Such crime, if crime it was, had been already pun- 
ished by the penalties and disabilities denounced against and 
inflicted upon him thereafter by the third section of the fourteenth 
amendment of the Constitution. General Bradly T. Johnson has 
written that he had it from Messers. O'Conor and Ould that this 
point was suggested by the Chief Justice." (Blackford p. 61). 

It was known that the sectional prejudices of Judge Under- 
wood would never permit him to indorse this view of the case, 
and that with Chief Justice Chase's decision there would be a 
divided Court — so much the better for the purposes in view. 

"Preparatory to the motion to quash on the ground, set forth 
above, Mr. Ould filed in open Court his own affidavit that on 
the 8th day of December, 1845, Mr. Davis on taking his seat in 
the House of Representatives, as a member from Mississippi, 
had taken the oath to support the Constitution of the United 
States. He then moved for a rule on the attorney of the United 
States to show cause why the indictment should not be quashed. 

"0)n Thursday, the 3rd of December, 1868, the question, aris- 
ing under the rule, was taken up in the Circuit Court of the 
United States, sitting at Richmond, with Judges Chase and Under- 
wood on the bench, and the real and final trial of Mr. Davis 
began" but never materialized. 

"There was not as much pomp and ceremony, nor as much 
dramatic effect as at the trial of Warren Hastings, nor has any 
such master of the art of word painting as McCaulay ever 
described it. In some respects, however, the scenes were alike, 
despite the difference in the character of the prisoners and in the 
stvle of crimes with which charged. In each case the prisoner 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 539 

at the bar was a man of high intelligence and strong will. Each 
had ruled an Empire. Hastings had governed a vast territory 
with many millions of population, and had added a continent to 
the crown of England. Davis had been the chosen leader of 
eleven commonwealths combined under him into a constitutional 
government which had met great armies and great captains in the 
field, and for four years, against desperate odds, and dependent 
solely on its own resources, had accomplished mighty deeds, won 
brilliant victories, and challenged the admiration of the civilized 
world by its sturdy fortitude and by the heroic defense of what 
it regarded right. 

"The very indictment against Jefferson Davis was the cata- 
logue of the great acts of a sovereign — a sovereign who con- 
spired with Lee and Jackson and the Johnstons, with Stuart and 
Forrest and Kirby Smith and Taylor, and many others to fight 
such battles as the two Manassas, the seven at Richmond, the 
two at Fredericksburg, and the bloody fields of Gettysburg, the 
Wilderness, Chancellorsville and Spottsylvania. 

"Great publicists like Chase and O'Conor and Evarts knew 
that the law and the custom of nations did not look upon such 
deeds as those of a traitor, and that the world stood aghast 
at the effort to thus debase the principles of international justice: 
but President Johnson and Judge Underwood, at a safe distance, 
would have read the riot act to the rebel army, and then held for- 
feited to the gallows the life of every gallant man who did not 
at once lay down his arms. 

"Mr. Davis sat behind his counsel on the day of his final trial, 
much improved since his last appearance in the same room. He 
was not an unworthy hero for such a scene. His eyes flashed 
with intellectural fire, his nervous energy was still alert, though 
his physical strength was much wasted. As he sat in the midst 
of the distinguished group, he was easily primus inter pares. 
His calm dignity and his dauntless courage inspired the zeal 
of his defenders and won the respect of those whose official duty 
it was to prosecute. He sat at that court arraigned for the crimes 
of a great people, a sovereign called upon to answer for the 
misdemeanor of an empire. His mien and bearing proved him 
worthy of the dignity of the position 



540 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

"The Chief Justice of the United States presided, and it is 
with pleasure that it can be recorded that he well maintained 
the functions of his high office. He occupied the same position 
which was held by Chief Justice Marshall in that other great 
trial, when Aron Burr stood indicted for treason at the same 
bar, and to his credit be it said, he was equally just and impartial. 

"The somewhat notorius Underwood sat by his side, but the 
arguments of counsel were, it is said by eye-witnesses, addressed 
only to the Chief Justice. Mr. O'Conor especially ignored his 
very existence, and the Chief Justice seemed to forget that he 
was beside him on the bench, except when, with the effrontery 
of ignorance, he exercised his right to dissent. The late Robert 
Whitehead, of Nelson, who was present, wrote that some time 
during the session of the Court something was said about the 
difficulty of securing an impartial jury in Richmond. Judge 
Underwood, with a wave of his hand towards the gallery packed 
with negroes, said he could easily secure a jury; but the sugges- 
tion was treated by Judge Chase with the contempt it deserved. 
Be it known that this man wore the ermine of a judge presiding 
in a high court of justice, and justice is not herself unless im- 
partial. 

"Of the many counsels for Mr. Davis, only four were selected 
to appear for him on that day, Messrs Charles O'Conor, Robert 
Ould, William B. Read and James Lyons; and of these Messrs. 
O'Conor and Ould were especially designated to make the argu- 
ment on the motion to quash. 

"For the Government there appeared the newly appointed Dis- 
trict Attorney S. Ferguson Beach, Richard H. Dana, Jr., of 
Boston, and H. H. Wells, who had been the military appointee 
as Governor of Virginia. The Attorney-General, Mr. Evarts, 
was not present, it being stated that 'official duties rendered it 
impossible for him to be present.' " 

Here was a trial supposed to involve issues of the most trans- 
cendent importance — the honor of the Government itself, and 
the right of the Government to coerce the South. What official 
duties of greater importance could have "rendered it" necessary 
for the Attorney-General to have been absent? Does it not look 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 541 

like the Government knew in advance what the Court's decision 
would be? 

"A demand was made for a written specification of the point 
upon which the motion to quash was made. This was soon 
written out by Mr. O'Conor, and the argument was opened by 
Mr. Ould in a speech of great clearness and logic. 

"At the close of Mr. Quid's speech the Chief Justice said that 
he was not surprised, as intimated by Mr. Dana, at the ground 
taken by the defendant. The course of the argument, he said, 
was anticipated, as the point urged was the common principle of 
constructive repeal. 

"Mr. Beach then opened for the Government, and Mr. Wells 
and Mr. Dana followed on the same side. Mr. O'Conor closed 
for the defense. 

"On the close of Mr. Wells' speech the Court adjourned until 
the next day, which was occupied by Mr. Dana and Mr. 
O'Conor." 

We have seen that the Chief Justice "was not surprised at 
the ground taken by the defendant;" and that he affirmed "the 
course of the argument was anticipated as the point urged was 
the common principle of constructive repeal." He had sug- 
gested the quashing of the indictment. No doubt but Judge 
Chase felt humiliated, as the head and representative of the 
judiciary of the nation, that Davis was ever indicted for treason 
and was ever arraigned for trial. 

"The argument having closed on the 4th of December, the 
Court adjourned until the next day, when it announced what 
was well understood at the outset would be the case — that the 
Court could not agree. Although not stated in the order, it 
is known that the Chief Justice held the point taken by the 
defense to be good and that the indictment should be quashed 
while Underwood would have overruled the motion and pro- 
ceeded to trial. The difference was that between a learned and 
upright lawyer, who could rise above political prejudice in the 
assertion of a great principle, and an ignorant partisian who 
permitted his personal bitterness to guide his judicial findings. 

"The result of this disagreement of the judges was that the 
motion to quash failed and thereupon the case was continued 



542 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

until the May term, 1869. The fact of the disagreement was 
certified to the Supreme Court that it might be there decided." 

This was the end of the celebrated cause. Later in December, 
1868, President Johnson published his general amnesty proclama- 
tion, which by common consent was held to cover Mr. Davis's 
case, and upon the 15th of February, 1869, the following order 
was entered in the Circuit Court : 

"Monday, February 15, 1869. 
"United States 

Vs. Upon Indictment for Treason. 

"Thomas Turner, William Smith, Wade Hampton, Benjamin 
Hugher, Henry A. Wise, Samuel Cooper, G. W. C. Lee, W. H. E. 
Lee, Charles Mallory, William Mahone, O. F. Baxter, Robert 
E. Lee, George W. Alexander, James Longstreet, William E. 
Taylor, Fitzhugh Lee, Robert H. Booker, John DeBree, M. D. 
Corse, Eppa Hunton, Rodger A. Pryor, D. H. Bridgford, Jubal 
A. Early, R. S. Ewell. William S. Winder, George Booker. 
Cornelius Boyles, William H. Payne, R. S. Andrews, C. J. Faulk- 
ner, R. H. Dulaney. W. N. McVeigh, H. B. Taylor, James A. 
Seldon, W. R. Richards, J. C. Breckinridge, and Jefferson Davis." 

What chivalrous Southerner would not rejoice if his name 
was enrolled with this illustrious company of great patriots ! 
They had been denounced as rebels, and charged with treason 
by the United States Government. Now the same Government 
has acquitted them of rebellion and treason, and has thus charged 
themselves with rebellion and treason. The thirty-four illustrious 
names given in the indictment represented the South and her 
glorious record in advocacy of the Constitution. Their vindica- 
tion is the vindication of the entire South. The vindication of 
the South is the accusation of the North. Both could not have 
been right. Now that the South has been declared in the right 
by the Government's own Court, by the same high authority the 
North is declared to have been in the wrong. 

("Two Cases"). 
"The District Attorney, by leave of the Court, said that he 
will not prosecute further on behalf of the United States against 
the above named parties upon separate indictments for treason. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 543 

It is, therefore, ordered by the Court that the prosecutions afore- 
said be dismissed." 

"Strange to say an order was entered upon the first of Feb- 
ruary reading 'that in as much as the indictments had been dis- 
missed, he and his bondsmen were forever released.' 

"The motion, on appeal in the Supreme Court, of course, was 
never called, and is now filed among the archives." 

Thus ended this great historical case. If Davis and his illus- 
trious patriots with all the brave defenders of the "Lost Cause" 
had been guilty of treason, the proof would have been forth- 
coming; and Davis and all the principal leaders would have been 
hung; and justly so. But the proof was not forthcoming. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 
THE TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 

On this subject the South has been charged with most atro- 
cious cruelty. This false accusation has been so completely 
refuted by Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, that we give his speech 
in full (omitting interruptions) as a complete refutation of the 
charges. 

On the 10th day of January, 1876, James G. Blaine in the 
House of Representatives, a prospective candidate for the presi- 
dency of the United States, delivered a well-prepared address 
in the House in which he charged that "Mr. Davis was fully, 
deliberately guilty and wantonly cognizant of, and responsible 
for the organized crime and murder of Andersonville," He also 
said, "I now assert deliberately before God, as my Judge, know- 
ing the full measure and import of my words, that the cruelties 
of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, and the screws and tortures of the Spanish Inquisi- 
tion did not approach in cruelty the atrocity of Andersonville." 

One has said, "No speech ever delivered in Congress created 
a profounder impression than this one. It i s logic on fire 
with truth and patriotism, literally consuming falsehood and 
sectional hatred. If Mr. Hill had never again opened his mouth 
in Congress, this speech would have made him famous and for- 
ever embalmed him in the grateful hearts of his countrymen. 
Its conclusion furnishes as fine declamation as can be found in 
the English language and is a favorite selection for college dec- 
lamation." 

The speech follows : 

"Mr. Speaker, the House will bear witness we have not sought 
this discussion. Nothing could have been farther from the de- 
sires and purposes of those who with me represent immediately 
the section of country which on yesterday was put upon trial, 
than to reopen the discussion of the events of our unhappy past. 
We had well hoped that the country had suffered long enough 
from feuds, from strife, from inflamed passions, and we came 
here, sir, with a patriotic purpose to remember nothing but the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 545 

country and the whole country, and, turning our backs upon 
all the horrors of the past, to look with all earnestness to find 
glories for the future, 

"The gentleman, who is the acknowledged leader of the Re- 
publican party on this floor, who is the aspiring leader of the 
Republican party of this country, representing most manifestly 
the wishes of many of his associates — not all — has willed other- 
wise. They seem determined that the wounds which were healing 
shall be reopened, that the passions which were hushing shall 
be re-inflamed. Sir, I wish this House to understand that we 
do not reciprocate either the purpose or the manifest desire of 
the gentleman on the other side, and while we feel it our imperative 
duty to vindicate the truth of history as regards the section which 
we represent, feeling that it is a portion of this common coimtry, 
we do not intend to say anything calculated to aid the gentlemen 
in their work of crimination and recrimination, and of keeping 
up the war by politicians after brave men have said war shall 
end. The gentleman from Maine on yesterday presented to the 
country two questions which he manifestly intends to be the 
fundamental principles of the Republican party, or at least of 
those who follow him in that party. The first is what he is 
pleased to term the magnanimity and grace of the Republican 
party ; and the second is the brutality of those whom he is pleased 
to term 'the rebels.' Upon the first question I do not propose 
to weary the House today. If, with the history of the past fifteen 
years, fresh in the memory of the people, the country is prepared 
to talk about the grace and magnanimity of the Republican party, 
argument would be wasted. If master enslaved, intelligence dis- 
franchised, society disorganized, industry paralized, States sub- 
verted. Legislatures dispersed by the bayonet, the people can ac- 
cord to that party the verdict of grace and magnanimity — may 
God save the future of our country from grace and magnanimity. 

"I advance directly to that portion of the gentleman's argu- 
ment which relates to the question before the House. The gen- 
tleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Randall) has presented to this 
House, and be asks it to be adopted, a bill on the subject of 
amnesty, which is precisely the same as the bill passed in this 
House by the gentleman's own party, as I understand it, at the 
last session of Congress. The gentleman from Maine has moved 



546 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

a reconsideration of the vote by which it was rejected, avowing 
his purpose to be to offer an amendment. The main purpose 
of that amendment is to except from the operation of the bill one 
of the citizens of this country, Mr. Jefferson Davis. 

"He alleges two distinct reasons why he asks the House to 
make that exception. I will state those reasons in the gentleman's 
owm language. First, he says 'Mr. Davis was the author- 
knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and willfully — of the gigantic 
murder and crime at Andersonville.' That is a grave indictment. 
He then characterizes, in his second position, what he calls the 
horrors of Andersonville. And he says of them : 

" 'And I here before God, measuring my words, knowing their 
full extent and import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke 
of Alva, nor the massacre of St. Bartholomew, nor the thumb- 
screws and engines of torture of the Spanish Inquisition, begin 
to compare in atrocity with the hideous crimes of x\ndersonville.' 

"Sir, he stands before this countr}- with his very fame in peril 
if he, having made such charges, shall not sustain them. Now 
T take up the propositions of the gentleman in their order. T hope 
no gentleman imagines that I am here to pass any eulogy upon 
Mr. Davis. The record upon which his fame must rest has 
been made up, and he and his friends have transmitted that 
record to the only judge who will give him an impartial judg- 
ment — an honest unimpassioned posterity. In the meantime no 
eulogy from me can help him, no censure from the gentleman 
can damage him, and no act or resolution of this House can 
affect him. But the charge is that he is a murderer, and a delib- 
erate, willful, guilty, scheming murderer of 'thousands of our 
fellow citizens.' Why, sir, knowing the character of the honor- 
able gentleman from Maine, his high reputation, when I heard 
the charge fall from his lips I thought surely the gentleman had 
made a recent discovery, and I listened for the evidence to 
justify that charge. He produced it: and what is it? To my 
utter amazement, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Kelley) has well stated, it is nothing on earth but a report of 
a committee of this Congress, made when passions were at their 
height, and it was known to the gentleman and to the whole 
country eight years ago. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 547 

"Now, I saj first in relation to that testimony, that it is ex- 
clusively ex parte. It was taken when the gentleman, who is 
now put upon trial by it before the conntry, was imprisoned 
and in chains, without a hearing and without an opportunity 
to be heard. It was taken by enemies. It was taken in the midst 
of fury and rage. If there is anything in Anglo-Saxon law which 
ought to be considered sacred, it is the high privilege of an 
Englishman not to be condemned until he shall be confronted 
with the witnesses against him. But that is not all. The testi- 
mony produced by the gentleman is not only ex parte, not only 
exclusively the production of enemies, or at least taken by them 
and in the midst of passion, but the testimony is mutilated.. 
Why, sir, one of the main witnesses is Dr. Joseph Jones, a very 
excellent gentleman, who was called upon to give his testimony 
in what is called the Wirz trial, antl which is produced before 
the House and attention called to it by the gentleman. The 
object of the gentleman was to prove that Mr. Davis knew of 
these atrocities at Andersonville, and he calls the attention of 
the House to the report of this committee and thanks God that 
it has been taken in time to be put where it can neither be con- 
tradicted nor gainsaid as a perpetual guide to posterity to find 
out the authors of these crimes. 

"One of the most striking and remarkable pieces of evidence 
is this whole report made by Dr. Jones, a surgeon of fine char- 
acter, and sent to Andersonville by the Confederate authorities 
to investigate the condition of that prison. That gentleman made 
his report, and it is brought into this House. What is it? The 
first point is as to the knowledge of this report going to any 
of the authorities at Richmond. Here is what Dr. Jones says : 

" *I have just completed the report, which I placed in the 
hands of the Judge Advocate under orders from the government, 
when the Confederacy went to pieces. That report never was 
delivered to the Surgeon-General, and I was imaware that any 
one knew of its existence until I received orders from the 
T'n.ited States Government to bring it to this Court in testimony.' 

"Now, he was ordered by the United States Government, the 
first time this report ever saw the light, to bring it and deliver 
it to the judge-advocate on the trial of Wirz. In accordance 



548 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

with that order he did bring it and deliver it to the judge- 
advocate general. And when the report itself, or that which 
purported to be the right report, was presented to him while 
he was a witness, he discovered that it was mutilated, and he 
asked permission to state thajt fact. Hear what he says on that 
subject: 

" 'I beg leave to make a statement to the Court. That portion 
of my report which has been read is only a small part of the 
report. The real report contains the excesses, which were given 
by the officers present at Andersonville, which I thought it right 
to embody with my report. It also contains documents for- 
warded to Richmond by Dr. Stevenson and others in charge of 
the hospitals. Those documents contain important facts as to 
the labors of the medical department and their efforts to better 
the condition of things.' 

"All that part of the report is suppressed, and with that sup- 
pression this magnificent receptacle of truth is filed away in 
the document room for the in'formation of posterity. 

"The Committee ask him : 

"Q. — 'Are your conclusions correctly stated in this extract?' 

"A. — 'Part of my conclusions are stated — not the whole. A 
portion of my conclusions and also my recommendations, are not 
stated.' 

"Q. — 'Well, touching the subject of exchange?' 

"A. — 'Yes, sir; the general difficulties environing the prisons 
and their officers.' 

"Q. — 'What became of your original report? 

"A. — 'This is my original report.' 

"That is he had there the extract as far as it went. 

"Q. — 'Did you make this extract yourself?' The committee 
seem to think that he was the man that simply made the extract 
and brought it before the committee. 

"A. — 'I did not. My original report is in the hands of the 
ju3ge-advocate. I delivered it into his hands immediately upon 
my arrival in Washington.' 

"And this Committee of Congress to which the gentleman re- 
fers, absolutely tells us that this mutilated report was the one 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 549 

introduced in evidence against this man Wirz, and it is the one 
incorporated in this book. 

"Now, I want to call attention to another extract from that 
original report — a part not included in this book. There are a 
great many such omissions; 1 have not been able to get all of 
them. 

"Dr. Jones in his report is giving an account of the causes 
of the sickness and mortality at Andersonville ; and he says, 
among other things : 

" 'Surrounded by these depressing agents, the postponement of 
the exchange of prisoners and the constantly receding hopes 
of deliverance through the action of their own Government, de- 
pressed their already desponding spirits and destroyed those 
mental and moral energies so necessary for a successful struggle 
against disease and its agents. Homesickness and disappoint- 
ment, mental depression and distress, attending the daily longino- 
for an apparently hopeless release, are felt to be as potent 
agencies in the destruction of these prisoners as the physical 
causes of actual disease.' 

"Ah ! why that homesickness, that longing and the distress 
consequent upon it, and its effect in carrying those poor, brave, 
unfortunate heroes to death? I will tell this House before I am 
done. 

"Now, sir, there is another fact. Wirz was put on trial, but 
really Mr. Davis was the man intended to be tried through him. 
Over one hundred and sixty witnesses were introduced before 
the military commission. The trial lasted three months. The 
whole country was under military despotism ; citizens labored 
under duress ; and quite a large number of Confederates were 
seeking to make favor with the powers of the Government. Yet, 
sir. during those three months, with all the witnesses they could 
bring to Washington, not one single man ever mentioned the 
name of Davis in connection with a single atrocity at Anderson- 
ville or elsewhere. The gentleman from Maine, with all his re- 
search into all the histories of the Duke of Alva and the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew and the Spanish Inquisition, has not been 
able to frighten up such a witness yet. 

"Novv^, sir, there is a witness on this subject. Wirz was con- 



550 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

demned, found guilty, sentenced to be executed ; and I have 
now before me the written statement of his counsel, a Northern 
man, a Union man. He gave this statement to the country and 
it has never been contradicted. 

"Hear what this gentleman says : 

" 'On the night before the execution of the prisoner, Wirz, 
a telegram was sent to the Northern press from this city stating 
that Wirz had made important disclosures to Gen. I^. C. Baker, 
the well known detective, implicating Jefferson Davis, and that 
the confession would probably be given to the public. On the 
same evening some parties came to the confessor of Wirz, Rev. 
Father Boyle, and also to me as his counsel, one of them inform- 
ing me that a high cabinet officer wished to assure Wirz that 
if we would implicate Jefferson Davis with atrocities committed 
at Andersonville his sentence would be commuted. The messen- 
ger requested me to inform Wirz of this. In the presence of 
Father Boyle I told Wirz the next morning what had happened.' 

"Hear the reply: 

" 'Captain Wirz simply and quietly replied : 'Mr. Schade, you 
know T have always told you that I do not know anything about 
Jefferson Davis. He had no connection with me as to what 
was done at Andersonville. I would not become a traitor against 
him or anybody else even to save my life.' "' 

"Sir, what Wirz, within two hours of his execution would not 
do. would not say for his life, the gentleman from Maine says 
to the country to keep himself and party in power. Christianity 
is a falsehood, humanity is a lie, civilization is a cheat, or the 
man who would not make a false charge for his life was never 
guilty of wilful murder. 

"He who makes a charge must produce his witness. They 
must be informed witnesses. They must be creditable witnesses. 
The gentleman from Maine makes his charge, but produces no 
witnesses. He says that men sent by Jefferson Davis to Ander- 
sonville were his officers, executing his orders, commissioned 
bv him. and he therefore charges Mr. Davis with these atrocities 
by inference. Tt ^vas only when the gentleman reached that 
portion of his argument thnt T thought I began to discover the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 551 

real purpose of his movement. I will not charge him with it, but 
a suggestion came immediately to my mind. 

"What is the proposition which the gentleman proposes to 
establish. It is that those high in authority are to be charged 
with the sins and the treacheries of their agents, commissioned 
by them and acting under their orders. Is the gentleman art- 
fully — I beg pardon — under the cover of prejudice and passion 
against Jefferson Davis, seeking to assault President Grant? If 
Jefferson Davis sent Gen. Winder to Andersonville, why Presi- 
dent Grant sent McDonald and Joyce to St. Louis. Nay, more, 
sir ; is not the very secretary of the White House, the private 
confidential secretary, indicted today for complicity in these 
frauds? Does the gentleman want to establish a rule of con- 
struction by which he can authorize the country to arraign Gen. 
Grant for complicity in the whisky frauds? 

"Sir. is Gen. Grant responsible for the Credit Mobilier? Was 
he a stockholder in the Sanborn contracts? Was he co-partner 
in the frauds upon this district^ With all his witnesses the 
gentleman never can find a single man who was confidential sec- 
retary to Air. Davis and charged with complicity in crime, that 
Mr. Davis ever indorsed any man as fit for office who was even 
gravely charged with an>' complicity in fraud. Yet the gentle- 
man's President, as I understand it, absolutely sent to the Senate 
of the United States for confirmation to a high office the very 
man who stood charged before the country with the grossest 
peculation and frauds in this district, and, that, too, after these 
charges were made and while the investigation was pending. 

"Sir, T am neither the author nor the disciple of such political 
logic. And I will not, nor would I for any consideration, assume 
the proposition before this House to furnish an enemy which 
would implicate the President of the United States in the grossest 
frauds. Yet, if the gentleman's proposition be true, Gen. Grant, 
instead of being entitled to a third Presidential term, is entitled 
to twenty terms in twenty penitentiaries. But, sir, he is not 
guilty. The argument is false. It is a libel upon the American 
rule of law and English precedent. You cannot find its precedent 
anywhere in any civilized country. I acquit Gen. Grant of any 



552 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OE THE SOUTH 

complicity in the whisky frauds, and the facts acquit Mr. Davis 
of any complicity in any atrocity anywhere. 

"Now, Mr. Speaker, I pass from the construction of that 
question to the real facts about Andersonville, First, I want to 
call the attention of the House to the law of the Confederate 
Government on the subject of the treatment of prisoners. I read 
from the act of the Confederate Congress on that subject ; it was 
very simple and direct: 

" 'The rations furnished prisoners of war shall be the same 
in quantity and quality as those furnished to enlisted men in the 
army of the Confederacy.' 

"That was the law ; that was the law Mr. Davis approved ; 
and that was the law Mr. Davis, so far as his agency was con- 
cerned, executed. 

The gentleman in his speech has gone so far as to say that 
Mr. Davis purposely sent Gen. Winder to Andersonville to or- 
ganize a den of horrors and kill Federal soldiers. I do not quote 
exactly his language, but I know it is 'to organize a den of 
horrors," but I am sure I cannot use any language more bitter 
than the gentleman used himself. Therefore the next thing I 
shall read is the order given for the purpose of locating this 
prison at Andersonville, or wherever it should be properly lo- 
cated. The official order for the location of the stockade enjoins 
tliat it should be in a 'healthy locality, with plenty of pure 
water, with a running stream, and, if possible, with shade trees, 
and the immediate neighborhood of grist and saw mills.' That 
does not look like the organization of a den of horrors to commit 
murder. That was the official order. That was not all. Those 
prisoners at Andersonville were not only allowed the rations 
measured out to Confederate soldiers both in quantity and qual- 
ity in every respect, but they were allowed also to buy as much 
outside as they desired : a privilege, I am reliably informed, which 
was not extended to many of the Confederate prisoners. I do 
not know how this is. 

"I do not wish to charge it if the facts were otherwise. But 
in the book which the gentleman from Maine himself produces 
we find this testimony, given by a Union soldier. He says : 

" 'We never had any difificulty in getting vegetables ; we used 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 553 

to buy almost anything that we wanted of the sergeant who 
called the roll mornings and night. His name was Smith, I 
think; he was Capt. Wirz's chief sergeant. We were divided 
into messes, eight in each mess ; my mess used to buy from 
two to four bushels of sweet potatoes a week, at the rate of 
$lo.00 per bushel Confederate money.' 

They got $20.00 of Confederate money for $1.00 of green- 
backs in those days. 

" 'Turnips were bought at $20.00 per bushel. We had to buy 
our own soap for washing our person and own clothing; we 
bought meat and eggs and biscuit. There seemed to be an 
abundance of these things ; they were in the market constantly. 
That sergeant used to come down with a wagon load of potatoes 
at a time, bringing twenty or twenty-five bushels at a load 
sometimes.' 

"Now, sir, Mr. Davis himself alluded to that privilege which 
was allowed to Federal soldiers. The Confederate authorities not 
only allowed them to purchase supplies as they pleased outside 
in addition to the rations allowed them by law — the same rations 
allowed to Confederate soldiers — ^but he says : 

" 'By an indulgence perhaps unprecedented, we have even al- 
lowed prisoners in our hands to be supplied by their friends at 
home with comforts not enjoyed by the men who captured them 
in battle.' 

"The Confederate Government gave Federal prisoners the same 
rations the Confederate soldiers in the field received. Federal 
prisoners had permission to buy whatever else they pleased, and 
the Confederates gave their friends at home permission to furnish 
them the means to do so. And yet, Mr. Speaker, it is true that, 
in spite of all these advantages enjoyed by these prisoners, there 
were horrors, and great horrors at Andersonville. What were 
the causes of these horrors? The first was the want of medicine. 
That is given as a cause by Dr. Jones in his testimony; that is 
given by this very Father Hamilton, from whom the gentleman 
of Maine read. In the very testimony, which the gentleman 
read, Father Hamilton says : 

" 'I conversed with Dr. White with regard to the condition 
of the men, and he told me it was not in his power to do anything 



554 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

for them ; that he had no medicine and could not get any and 
that he was doing everything in his power to help them.' 

"Now, how was it that medicines and other essential supplies 
could not be obtained? Unfortunately they were not in the 
Confederacy. The Federal Government made medicine contra- 
band of war ; and I am not aware that any other nation on 
earth ever did such a thing before — not even the Duke of Alva, 
sir. The Confederate Government, unable to introduce medicine 
according to its right under the laws of Nations, undertook to 
run the blockade, and whenever possible the Federal Navy cap- 
tured its ships and took the medicine. Then when no other re- 
source was left, when it was suspected the women of the North — 
the earth's angels, God bless them — would carry quinine and 
other medicines of that sort, so much needed by the Federal 
prisoners in the South, Federal officers were charged to capture 
the women and examine their petticoats, to keep them from car- 
rying medicine to Confederate soldiers and Federal prisoners, 
and they were imprisoned. Surely, sir. the Confederate Govern- 
ment and the Southern people arc not to blame for a poverty 
in medicine, food and rainment, enforced by the stringent war 
measures of the Federal Government — a poverty which had its 
intended effect of immeasurable distress to the Confederate 
armies, although it incidentally inflicted unavoidable distress upon 
Federal prisoners in the South. 

"The Feder?! Government made clothing contrabrand of war. 
It sent down its cirmies and they burned up the factories of the 
South wherever they could find them, for the express purpose 
of preventing the Confederates from furnishing clothing to their 
soldiers, and the Federal Government, of course, shared this 
deprivation of comfortable clothing. It was the war policy of 
the Federal Government to make supplies scarce. Dr. Jones 
in his testimony and Father Hamilton in his testimony, which 
I will not stop to read to the House, explained why clothing 
was scarce to Federal prisoners. 

"Now, then, sir. whatever horrors existed at Andersonville, 
not one of them can be attributed to a single order of the Con- 
federate Government, but every horror of Andersonville grew 
out of the necessities of the occasion, which necessities were cast 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 555 

upon the Confederacy by the war policy of the other side. The 
gentleman from Maine said that no Confederate prisoner was 
ever maltreated in the North. And when my friend answered 
from his seat, 'A thousand witnesses to the contrary in Georgia 
alone,' the gentleman from Maine joined issue, but as usual 
produced no testimony in support of the issue. I think the gen- 
tleman from Maine is to be excused. For ten years, unfortunate- 
h', he ;'!)'! his ])arty have been reviling the people who were 
not allowed to come here to meet the reviling. . Now, sir, we 
are face to face, and when you make a charge you must bring 
your proof. The time has passed when the country can accept 
the impudence of assertion for the force of argument, or reck- 
lessness of statement for the truth of history. 

"Now, sir, I do not wish to unfold the chapter on the other 
side. I am an American. I honor my country, and my whole 
country, and it could be no pleasure to me to bring forward 
proof that any portion of my countrymen have been guilty of 
wilful murder or cruel charge. These horrors are inseparable, 
many of them and most of them, from a state of war. I hold in 
my hand a letter, written by one who was a surgeon at the 
prison at Elmira. and he says: 

"'The winter of 1864 was an unusually severe and rigid one, 
and the prisoners arriving from the Southern States during the 
season were merely old men and lads, clothed in attire suitable 
only to the genial climate of the South. I need not state to you 
that this alone was ample cause for an imusual mortality among 
them. The surroundings were of the following nature ; namely, 
narrow, confined limits, but a few acres in extent — ' 

"Andersonville, sir, embraced twenty-seven acres — and 
through which slowly flowed a turbid stream of water which, 
horrible to relate, was the only source of supply, for an extended 
period, that the prisoners could possibly use for the purpose of 
ablution and to slack their thirst from day to day; the tents 
and other shelter allotted to the Camp at Elmira were insuffi- 
cient and crowded to the utmost extent : hence small-pox and 
other skin diseases raged throt\gh the camp. 

"Here T may note that owing to a general order from the 
Government to vaccinate the prisoners, my opportunities were 



556 RICHAKDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

ample to observe the effects of spurious and diseased matter, 
and there is no doubt in my mind but that syphilis was ingrafted 
in many instances ; ugly and horrible ulcers and eruptions of a 
characteristic nature were, alas ! too frequent and obvious to be 
mistaken; small-pox cases were crowded in such manner that 
it was a matter of impossibility for the surgeon to treat his pa- 
tient^s individually ; they actually laid so adjacent that the sim- 
ple movement of one would cause his neighbor to cry out in 
agony of pain. The confluent and malignant type prevailed to 
such an extent and of such a nature that the body would fre- 
quently be found one continuous scab. 

" 'The diet and other allowances by the Government for the 
use of the prisoners were ample, yet the poor unfortunates were 
allowed to starve.' 

"Now, sir, the Confederate regulations authorizes ample pro- 
visions for Federal prisoners, the same that were made for Con- 
federate soldiers, and you charge that Mr. Davis is responsible 
'for not having those allowances honestly applied. The United 
States made provisions for Confederate prisoners, so far as 
rations were concerned, for feeding those in Federal hands ; and 
yet what says the surgeon? They were allowed to starve. 

"But 'why?' is a querry which I will allow your readers to 
infer and draw conclusions therefrom. Out of the number of 
prisoners, as before mentioned, over three thousand of them 
now lay buried in the cemetery located near the camp for that 
purpose — a mortality equal if not greater than any prison in 
the South. At Andersonville, as I am well informed by brother 
officers who endured confinement there, as well as by the rec- 
ords at Washington, the mortality was twelve thousand out of, 
say, forty thousand prisoners. Hence it is readily to be seen 
that the range of mortality was no less at Elmira than at x\nder- 
sonville. 

"Now, will the gentleman believe testimony from the dead^ 
The Bible says 'The tree is known by its fruit.' And after all 
what is the test of the suffering of these prisoners North and 
South? The test is the result. Now, I call the attention of 
the gentleman to this fact, that the report of Mr. Stanton, the 
Secretarv of war — you will believe him, will you not? on the 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 557 

19th of July 1866 — send to the Library and get it — exhibits the 
fact that the Federal prisoners in Confederate hands during 
the war, only 22,576 died, while of the Confederate prisoners 
in Federal hands 26,436 died. And Surgeon-General Barnes 
ref>orts in an official report, I suppose you will believe him — 
that in round nurribers the Confederate prisoners in Federal 
hands amounted to 220,000 while,, the Federal prisoners in 
Confederate hands amounted to 270,000. Out of the 270,000 
in Confederate hands 22,000 died, while of the 220,000 Con- 
federates in- Federal hands over 26,000 died. The ratio is 
this: More than twelve per cent, of the Confederates in Federal 
hands died, and less than nine per cent, of the Federals in Con- 
federate hands died. What is the logic of these facts accord- 
ing to the gentleman from Maine? I scorn to charge murder 
upon the officials of Northern prisons, as the gentleman has 
done upon Confederate prison officials. I labor to demonstrate 
that such miseries are inevitable in prison life, no matter how 
humane the regulations. I would scorn, too, to use a newspaper 
article, unless it were signed by one, who gave his own name 
and whose statements, if not true, can be disproved, and I would 
believe such a one in preference to any politician over there 
who was thirty-six miles away from Elmira. That gentleman, 
so prompt to contradict a surgeon, might perhaps have smelled 
the small-pox, but he could not see it, and I venture to say 
that if he knew the small-pox was there he would have taken 
very good care to keep thirty-six miles away. He is a wonder- 
ful witness. He is not even equal to the mutilated evidence 
brought in yesterday. Rut. sir, it appears from, the official rec- 
ord that the Confederates came from Elmira, from Fort Dela- 
ware, and from Rock Island and other places, with their fingers 
frozen off, and with teeth dropped out. 

"But the great question is behind. Every American, North 
and South, must lament that our country has ever impeached 
its civilization by such an exhibition of horrors on any side, 
and I speak of these things with no degree of pleasure. God 
knows if I could hide them from the view of the world I would 
gladly do it. But the great question is, at last, who was respon- 
sible for this state of things? And that is really the only ma- 



558 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

terial question with which statesmen now should deal. Sir, it 
is well known that, when the war opened, at first the authorities 
of the United States determined that they would not exchange 
prisoners. The first prisoners captured by the Federal forces 
were the crew of ^he Savannah, and they were put in chains 
and sentenced to be executed. Jefferson Davis hearing- of this 
communicated throug^h the lines, and the Confederates h::vinf^ 
meanv/hile also cantur'-d prisoners, he threatened retaliation in 
case those men suffered, and the sentences against the crew of 
th Savannah were not executed. Subsequently our friends from 
this way — T believe mv friend before me from New York 
(Mr. Cox) was one — insisted that there should be a cartel for 
the exchange of prisoners. In 1502 that cartel was agreed upon. 
In substance and briefly it was ag-reed that there should be an 
exchange of man for man, and officer for officer, and whichever 
held an excess at the time of exchanges should parole the ex- 
cess. This worked very well until 18G3. I am going over the 
facts ver}- briefly. 

"It was then this cartel was interrupted : the Federal author- 
ities refused to continue the exchanges. Now commenced a 
history which the world ought to know, and which T hope the 
House will grant me the privilege of stating, and I shall do 
it from official records. This, I say frankly to the gentlemen 
on the other side, was in truth one of the severest blows stricken 
at the Confederacy, this refusal to exchange prisoners in 1863 
and continued through 1864. The Confederates made every ef- 
fort to renew the cartel. Among other things, on the 2d of 
July, 1863, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, the gentle- 
man to whom the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Blaine) alluded 
the other day in so complimentary terms, Mr. Alexander H. 
Stephens, was absolutely commissioned by President Davis to 
cross the lines and come to Washington to consult with the Fed- 
eral authorities, with a broad commission to agree upon any 
cartel satisfactory to the other side for exchange of prisoners. 
Mr. Davis said to him, Your mission is simply one of humanity 
and has no political aspect. Mr. Stephens undertook that work. 
What was the result? I wish to be careful, and I will state 
this exactly, correctly. Here is his letter. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 559 

" 'Confederate States, vSteanier Torpedo in James River, July 
4, 1863. 

"'Sir: As military commissioner, I am the bearer of a com- 
mission in writing from Jefferson Davis, Commander-in-Chief 
of the land and naval forces of the Confederate States, to Abra- 
ham Lincoln, Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval forces 
of the United States. Hon. Robt. Ould, Confederate States 
agent of exchange, accompanies me as secretary, for the pur- 
pose of delivering the communication in person and conferring 
upon the subject to which it relates. I desire to proceed to 
Washington in the Steamer Torpedo, commanded by Lieut. Hun- 
ter Davidson, of the Confederate States navy, no person being 
on board but Hon. Mr. Ould, myself and the boat's officers and 
crew. 

" 'Yours most respectfully, 

'* 'Alexander H. Stephens.' " 
"'To S. H. Lee, Admiral"' 

"This was directed to S. H Lee, Admiral. Here is the an- 
swer : 

"'Acting Rear Admiral S. H. Lee, Hampton Roads: The 
request of Alexander H. Stephens is inadmissible. 

'■' 'Gideon Wells, Secretary of War. 

"You will acknowledge that Mr. Stephen's humane mission 
failed. The Confederate authorities gave to that mission as 
much dignity and character as possible. They supposd that of 
all men in the South Mr. Stephens most nearly had your confi- 
dence. They selected him to be the bearer of messages for the 
sake of humanity in behalf of the brave Federal soldiers who 
were unfortunate prisoners of v/ar. The Federal Government 
would not even receive him ; the Federal authorities would not 
hear him. 

"What was the next effort? After Mr. Stephens's mission 
failed, the Commissioner for the exchange of prisoners. Col. 
Ould,Jiaving exhausted all his efforts to get the cartel renewed, 
on the 24th of January 1864, wrote the following letter to Major- 
General E. A. Hitchcock, agent of exchange on the Federal 
side : 



560 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

" 'Confederate States of America, War Dept. 

'"Richmond, Va., Jan. 24, 1864. 

" 'Sir: In view of the difficulties attending the exchange and 
release of prisoners, I propose that all such on either side shall 
be attended by a proper number of their own surgeons, who, 
under rules to be established, shall be permitted to take charge 
of their health and comfort. I also propose that these surgeons 
shall act as commissaries, with power to receive and distribute 
such contributions of money, food, clothing, and medicines, as 
shall be forwarded for the relief of prisoners. I further pro- 
pose that all these surgeons shall be selected by their own Gov- 
ernment, and that they shall have full liberty, at any and all 
times, through the agents of exchange, to make reports not only 
of their own acts, but of any matters relating to the welfare of 
the prisoners. 

" 'Respectfully your obedient servant, 

" 'Robt. Quid, Agent of Exchanges. 
" 'Major-General E. A. Hitchcock, 

"How, sir, did the Federal Government treat that offer? It 
broke the cartel for the exchange of prisoners ; it refused to 
entertam a proposition, even when Mr. Stephens headed the 
commission, to renew it ; and then, sir, when the Confederates 
proposed that their own surgeons should accompany the pris- 
oners of the respective armies, the federal authorities did not 
answer the letter. No reply was ever received. 

"Then again in August lSfi4, the Confederates made two more 
propositions. I will state that the cartel o^f exchange was 
broken by the Federal authorities for certain alleged reasons. 
Well, in August 1864. prisoners accumulated on both sides to 
such an extent and the Federal Government having refused 
every proposition from the Confederate authorities to provide 
for the comfort and treatment of these prisoners, the Confed- 
erates next proposed, in a letter from Col. Ould, dated the 10th 
of August 1864, waving every objection the Federal Govern- 
ment had made, to agree to any and all terms and renew the 
exchange of prisoners, man for man and officer for officer, as 
the Federal Government should prescribe. Yet, sir, the Federal 
Government rejected that proposition. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 561 

"Then, again, in that same month, August, 1864, the Confed- 
erate authorities did this : Finding that the Federal Govern- 
ment would not exchange prisoners at all ; that it would not let 
surgeons go into the Confederacy ; finding that it would not let 
medicines be sent into the Confederacy ; meanwhile the ravages 
of war continuing and depleting the scant supplies of the South, 
which was already unable to feed adequately its own defenders, 
and much less able to properly feed and clothe the thousands 
of prisoners in Confederate prisons, what did the Confederates 
propose? They proposed to send the Federal sick and wounded 
prisoners without equivalent. Now, sir, I want the House and 
the country to understand this: that, in August, 1864, the Con- 
federate Government officially proposed to Federal authorities 
that if they would send steamships of transportation in any 
form to Savannah, they should have their sick and wounded 
prisoners without equivalent. That proposition, communicated 
to the Federal authorities in August, 1864, was not answered 
until December 1864. In December 1864, the Federal Govern- 
ment sent ships to Savannah. Now, the records will show that 
the chief sufifenng at Andersonville was between August and 
December. The Confederate authorities sought to avert it by 
asking the Federal Government to come and take its prisoners 
without equivalent, without return, and it refused to do that 
until four or five months had elapsed. 

That is not the only appeal which was made to the Federal 
Government. I now call the attention of the House to another 
appeal. It was from the Federal prisoners themselves. They 
knew as well as the Southern people did the mission of Mr- 
Stephens. They knew the offer of Januarj' 24'th for Surgeons, 
for medicine and clothing, for comforts and food, and for pro- 
visions of every kind. They knew that the Confederate author- 
ities had offered to let these be sent to them by their own 
Government. They knew that these had been rejected. They 
knew of the ofifer of August 10th, 1864. They knew of the 
other offer to return sick and wounded without equivalent. 
They knew all these had been rejected. Therefore they held 
a meeting and passed the following resolutions ; and I call the 
attention of the gentlemen on the other side to these resolutions. 



562 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

I ask if they will not believe the surgeons of their hospitals; 
if they will not believe Mr. Stanton's report; if they will not 
believe Surgeon-General Barnes' report, I beg from them to 
know if they will not believe the earnest heart-rending appeal 
of those starving, suffering heroes. Here are the resolutions 
passed by the Federal prisoners the 28th of September, 1864. 

"Resolved, while allowing the Confederate authorities all 
due praise for the attention paid to our prisoners, numbers of 
our men are daily consigned to early graves, in the prime of 
manhood, far from home and kindred, and this is not caused 
intentionally by the Confederate Government, but by the force 
of circumstances. 

"Brave men are always honest, and true soldiers never slan- 
der. They say the horrors they suffered were not intnetional; 
that the Confederate Government had done all it could to avert 
them. Sir, I believe the testimony of gallant men as being 
of the highest character, coming from the sufferers themeslves. 

"They further resolved : 

"The prisoner is obliged to go without shelter, and in a great 
portion of cases without medicine. 

" 'Resolved, That whereas in the fortunes of war it was our 
lot to become prisoners, we have suffered patiently and are still 
willing to suffer, if by so doing we can benefit the country ; 
but we would most respectfully beg to say that we are not 
willing to suffer to further the ends of any party or clique to 
the detriment of our own honor, our families, and our country. 
And we would beg this affair be explained to us, that we may 
continue to hold the Government in respect which is necessary 
to make a good citizen and soldier.' 

"Was this touching appeal heeded? Let any gentleman who 
belonged to the clique or party that the resolutions condemn, 
answer for his party. 

"Now, sir, it was in reference to that state of thigns, ex- 
actly, that Dr. Jones reported, as I have already read to the 
House, in hfs report which was mutilated before that commit- 
tee in Congress and in the trial of Wirz — it was in consequence 
of that very state of things that Dr. Jones said that depression 
of mind and despondency and home-sickness of these poor pris- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 563 

oners carried more to their graves than did physical causes of 
disease. That was not wonderful at all. 

"But, Mr. Speaker, why were all these appeals resisted? 
Why did the Federal authorities refuse to allow their own sur- 
geons to go to their own soldiers and carry them medicine and 
clothing and comfort and treatment. Why? Why did they 
refuse to exchange man for man and officer for officer? Why 
did they refuse to stand up to their own solemn engagements, 
made in 1862, for the exchange of prisoners? Who is at fault? 
There must be a reason for this. That is the next point to 
which I wish to call the attention of the House. Sir, listen to 
the reading. The New York Tribune, referring to this mat- 
ter in 1864, said — I suppose you will believe the Tribune in 
1864, if you do not believe it now. 

" 'In August the rebels offered to exchange man for man. 
Gen. Grant then telegraphed the following important order: 'It 
is hard on our men held in Southern prisons not to exchange 
them, but it is humanity to those left in the ranks to fight our 
battles. Every man released on parole or otherwise becomes an 
active soldier against us at once, either directly or indirectly. 
If we commend a system of exchange which liberates all pris- 
oners taken, we will have to fight on till the whole South is ex- 
terminated. If we hold those caught, they amount to no more 
than dead men. At this particular time to release all rebel pris- 
oners North would insure Sherman's defeat, and would com- 
promise our safety here.* 

"Here is Gen. Grant's testimony before the Committee on 
the exchange of prisoners, February 11, 1865. You beheve 
him, do you not? 

"Q. 'It has been said that we refused to exchange prisoners 
because we found ours starved, diseased and unserviceable when 
we received them, and did not like to exchange sound men for 
such men?' 

"That was the question propounded to him. His answer was: 

"There never has been any such reason as that. That has 
been a reason for making exchanges. I will confess that if our 
men who are prisoners in the South were really well taken care 
of, suffering nothing except a little privation of liberty, then, 



564 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

in a military point of view, it would not be good policy for us to 
exchange, because every man they get back is forced right into 
the army at once, while that is not the case with our prisoners 
when we receive them ; in fact, the half of our returned prison- 
ers will never go into the army again and none of them will 
until after they have had a furlough of thirty or sixty days. 
Still, the fact of their suffering as they do is a reason for mak- 
ing this exchange as rapidly as possible.' 

"Q. 'And never has been a reason for making the exchange?' 

"A. 'It never has. Exchanges having been suspended by 
reason of disagreement on the part of agents of exchange on 
both sides before I came into command of the armies of the 
United States and it then being near the opening of the spring 
campaign, I did not deem it advisable or just to the men who 
had to fight our battles to re-enforce the enemy with thirty or 
forty thousand disciplined troops at that time. An immediate 
resumption of exchange would liave had that effect without giv- 
ing us corresponding benefits. The suffering said to exist among 
our prisoners was a powerful argument against the course pur- 
sued and so T felt it.' 

"There is no disputing the fact, that with the knowledge that 
his prisoners were suffering in the South, he insisted that the 
exchange should not be renewed, because it would increase the 
mihtary power of the enemy. Now, that may have been a good 
military reason. I do not quote it for the purpose of reflecting 
upon Gen. Grant in the slightest. I am giving the facts of 
history. I insist that the Confederacy shall not be held respon- 
sible for the results of the war policy of the Federal Govern- 
ment, especially when the record proves that the confederate 
authorities made every possible effort to avert these results. Nor 
do T allege inhumanity on the part of Gen. Grant's interpreta- 
tion of those facts. Let the world judge. 

"Now, sir, we have other authorities upon that subject. Here 
is a letter by Junius Henri Browne. T do not know the gentle- 
man. He signs his name to the letter. He writes like a schol- 
ar. He is a Northern gentleman, and T am not aware that his 
statement has ever been contradicted. Now, what does he 
say? 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 565 

"'New York. August 8, 1865. 

" 'Moreover, Gen. Butler in his speech at Lowell, Mass., stated 
positively that he had been ordered by Mr. Stanton to put for- 
ward the negro question to complicate and prevent the exchange 

Every one is aware that when the exchange did take 

place, not the slightest alteration had occurred in the question, 
and that our prisoners might as well have been released twelve 
or eighteen months before as at the resumption of the cartel, 
which would have saved to the Republic at least twelve or fifteen 
thousand heroic lives. 

" 'That they were not saved is alone due to Edwin M. Stan- 
ton's peculiar policy, and dogged obstinacy ; and, as I have re- 
marked before, he is unquestionably the digger of the unnamed 
graves that crowd the vicinity of every Southern prison with his- 
toric and never to be forgotten horrors.' 

"That is the testimony of a Northern man against Mr. Stan- 
ton and he goes on : 

"T regret the revival of this painful subject but the gratuitous 
effort of Mr. Dana to relieve the secretary of War irom the re- 
sponsibility he seems willing to bear, and which, merely as a 
question of policv. independent of all considerations of hu- 
manity, must be regarded as of great weight, has com({>elled 
me to vindicate myself from the charge of making grave state- 
ments without due consideration. 

"'Once for all let me declare that I have never found fault 
with any one because I was detained in prison, for I am well 
aware that was a matter in which no one but myself and possi- 
bly a few personal friends would feel any interest: that my 
sole motive for impeaching the Secretary of War was, that 
the people of the loyal North might know to whom they were 
indebted for the cold-blooded and needless sacrifice of their 
fathers and brothers, their husbands and their sons.' 

"T understand that Mr. Browne is a contributor to Harper's 
Monthly, and was then. The man. so he tells you, who was re- 
sponsibie for these atrocities at Andersonville was the late sec- 
retary of war. Mr. Stanton. 

"Now, Mr. Speaker, what have I proven. I have proven that 
the Federal authorities broke the cartel for the exchange of 



566 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

prisoners deliberately ; I have proven that they refused to re- 
open the cartel when it was proposed by Mr. Stephens, as a 
commissioner, solely on the ground of humanity ; I have proven 
that they made medicine contraband of war and thereby left 
the South to the dreadful necessity of treating their own prisoners 
with such medicines as could be improvised in the Confederacy; 
I have proven that they refused to allow surgeons of their own 
appointment, of their own army, to accompany their prisoners 
in the South, with full license and liberty to carry food, medi- 
cine, and raiment, and every comfort that the prisoners might 
need ; I have proven that when the Federal Government made 
the pretext for interrupting the cartel for the exchange of pris- 
oners, the Confederates yielded every point and proposed to ex- 
change prisoners on the terms of the Federal Government, and 
that the latter refused it ; T have proven that the Confederates 
then proposed to return the Federal sick and wounded without 
equivalent in August LS64, and never got a reply until December, 
1864; I have proven that high Federal officers have assigned as a 
reason why they would not exchange prisoners that it would be 
humanity to the prisoners but cruelty to the soldiers in the field, 
and therefore it was a part of the Federal military policv to 
let Federal prisoners suffer rather than that the Confederacy 
should have an increase of military force; and that the Federal 
Government refused it, when it would have received more pris- 
oners than it returned to the Confederates. 

"Now what is the answer to all this? Against whom does 
the charge lie, if there are to be accusations of any, for the 
horrors of Andersonville?" 

Mr. Brigjht — "What was the? percentage of death in the 
prison ?'' 

Mr. Hill — "I have already given it I have proved also, that 
with all the horrors at Andersonville the gentleman of Maine 
has so ostentatiously paraded, and for an obvious partisan pur- 
pose of exciting upon the floor of the House a bitter sectional 
discussion, from which his partv. and perhaps hintself, may be 
the beneficiary, greater sufferings occurred in the prisons where 
Confederate soldiers were confined, and that the percentage of 
death was three per cent, greater among Confedrate troops 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 567 

in Federal hands than among Federal soldiers held by the Con- 
federates. And I need not state the contrast between the needy 
Confederacy and the abundance of Federal supplies and re- 
sources. 

"And, sir, when the gentleman rises again to give breath to 
that effusion of unmitigated genius without fact to sustain it, 
in which he says, 

"And I here before God, measuring my words, knowing their 
full import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva 
in the Low Countries, nor the massacre of St. Bartholomew, nor 
the thumb-screws and engines of torture of the Spanish inquisi- 
tion, begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous crime of An- 
dersonville," let him add in that mortality at Andersonville 
and other Confederate prisons falls short by more than three 
per cent, the mortality in Federal prisons. 

"Sir, if any man will reflect a moment he will see that there 
was reason why the Confederate Government should desire ex- 
change of prisoners. It was scarce of food, pinched for cloth- 
ing, closed up with a blockade of its ports ; it needed troops : 
its ranks were thinning. 

"Now, Mr. Speaker, it is proper that I should read one or 
two sentences from the man who has been arraigned as the 
vilest murderer in history. After the battles around Richmond 
in which McClellan was defeated some ten thousand prisoners 
fell into the hands of the Confederacy. Victory had perched 
upon its standard and the rejoicing, naturally following the 
victory, was heard in the ranks of the Confederate army. Mr. 
Davis went out to make a gratulatory speech. Now. gentlemen 
of the House, gentlemen of the other side, if you are willing 
to do justice, let me simply call your attention to the words of 
this man that fell from his lips in the hour of victory. Speak- 
ing to the soldiers he said : 

"You are fighting for all that is dearest to man, and though 
opposed to a foe who disregards many of the usages of civilized 
war, your humanity to the wounded and prisoners was a fit and 
crowning glory to your valor. 

"Above the victory, above every other consideration, even that 
victory which they believed insured protection to their homes and 



B68 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

families, he tells them that at last their crowning glory was 
their humanity to the wounded and prisoners who had fallen into 
their hands. 

"The gentleman from Maine yesterday introduced the Rich- 
mond Examiner as a witness in his behalf. Now it is a rule 
of law that a man can not impeach his own witness. It is true 
the Examiner hated Mr. Davis with a cordial hatred. The 
gentleman could not have introduced the testimony of perhaps 
a bitterer foe to Mr. Davis. Why did it hate him? Here are 
its reasons : 'The chivalry and humanity of Mr. Davis will 
inevitably ruin the Confederacy.' That is your witness, and the 
witness is worthy of your cause. You introduced the witness 
to prove Mr. Davis guilty of inhumanity, and he tells you that 
the humanity of Mr. Davis will ruin the Confederacy. That 
is not all. In the same paper it says : 'The enemy have gone 
from one unmanly cruelty to another.' Recollect this is your 
witness. The enemy have gone from one unmanly cruelty to 
another, encouraged by their impunity, till they are now and 
have for sometime been inflicting on the people of this country 
the worst horrors of barbarous and uncivilized war.' Yet, in 
spite of all this the Examiner alleged that, *Mr. Davis, in his 
dealings with the enemy, was as gentle as a sucking dove.' " 

Mr. Garfield. — "What volume was that?" 

Mr. Hill. — "The same volume, page 531, and is taken from 
the Richmond Examiner — the paper the gentleman quoted from 
yesterday. And that is the truth. Those of us who were 
there at the time know it to be the fact. One of the persistent 
charges brought by that paper and some others against Mr. 
Davis was his humanity. Over and over again Mr. Davis has 
Ibeen heard to say, and I use his very language, when appealed 
to to retaliate for the horrors inflicted upon our prisoners, 'The 
inhumanity of the enemy to our prisoners can be no justifica- 
tion for a disregard by us for the rules of civilized v/ar and 
of Christianity.' Therefore he persisted in it, and this paper 
cried out againsi him that it would ruin the Confederacy. 

"I am sure I owe this House an apologv for having detained 
it so long; I shall detain it but a few moments longer. After 
all, what should men do who really desire the restoration of 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 569 

peace and to prevent the recurrence of the horrors of war? How 
ought they to look at this q nest ion? Sir, war is always hor- 
rible; war always brings hardships; it brings death, it brings 
sorrow, it brings ruin, it brings devastation. And he is un- 
worthy to be called a statesman, looking to the pacification of 
this country, who will parade the horrors inseparable from 
war for the purpose of keeping up the strife that produced the 
war. 

"I do not doubt that I am the bearer of cm unwelcome mes- 
sage to the gentleman from Maine and his part). He says that 
there are Confederates in this body, and that they are going to 
combine with a few from the North for the purpose of con- 
trolling this Government. If one were to listen to the gentle- 
man on the other side he would be in doubt whether they re- 
joiced more when the South left the Union, or regretted most 
when the South came back to the Union that their fathers helped 
to form, and to which they will forever hereafter contribute as 
much of patriotic ardor, or noble devotion, and of willing sac- 
rifice as the constituents of the gentleman from Maine. Oh, 
Mr. Speaker, why can not gentlemen on the otbe-, side rise to 
the height of this great argmnent of patriotism? Is the bosom 
of the country always to be torn with this miserable sectional 
debate whenever a presidential election is pending? To that 
great debate of half a century before secession there were left 
no adjourned questions. The victory of the North was abso- 
lute, and God knows the submission of the South was complete. 
Rut, sir we have recovered from this humiliation of defeat and 
we come here among you and we ask you to give us the greet- 
ings accorded to brothers by brothers. We propose to join 3'ou 
in every patriotic aspiration that looks to the benefit, the ad- 
vancement, and the honor of every part of our common country. 
Let us, gentlemen of all partiees. in this centennial year indeed 
have a jubilee of freedom. \Vc divide with you the glories 
of the Revolution and of the succeeding years of our national 
life before that unhappy division, that four years' night of gloom 
and dispair — and so we shall divide with you the glories of all 
the future. 

"Sir, my message is this: There are no Confederates in this 



570 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OP THE SOUTH 

House; there are no Confederates anywhere; there are no Con- 
federate schemes, ambitions, hopes, desires, or purposes here. 
But the South is here, and here she intends to remain. Go on 
and pass your quaHfying acts, trample upon the Constitution 
you have sworn to support ; abnegate the pledges of your fathers ; 
incite raids upon our people, and multiply your infidelities until 
they shall be like the stars <'>i heaven or the sands of the sea- 
shore, without number ; but know this, for all your iniquities the 
South will never again seek a remedy in the madness of another 
secession. We are here ; we are in the house of our fathers, our 
brothers are our companions, and we are at home to stay, thank 
God! 

"We come to gratify no revenges, to retaliate no wrongs, to 
resent no past insults, to re-open no strife. We come with a 
patriotic purpose to do whatever in our political power shall 
lie to restore an honest, economical and constitutional adminis- 
tration of the Government. We come charging upon the Union 
no wrongs to us. The Union never wronged us. The Union 
has been an unmixed blessing to every section, to every state, to 
every man of every color in America. We charge our wrongs 
upon that 'higher law' fanaticism, that never kept a pledge nor 
obeyed a law. The South did seek to leave the association of 
those who she believed would not keep fidelity to their cove- 
nants ; the South sought to go to herself ; but so far from hav- 
ing lost our fidelity for the Constitution which our fathers made, 
when we sought to go, we hugged that Constitution to our bos- 
oms and carried it with us. 

"Brave men of the North, followers of Webster and Fill- 
more, of Clay and Cass and Douglass — you who fought for the 
Union for the sake of the Union ; you who ceased to fight when 
the battle ended and the sword was sheathed — we have no quar- 
rel with you, whether Republicans or Democrats. We felt your 
heavy arm in the carnage of battle; but above the roar of the 
cannon we heard your voice of kindness, calling, "Brothers, 
come back!" And we bear witness to you this day that that 
voice of kindness did more to thin the Confederate ranks and 
weaken the Confederate arm than did all the artillery exploded 
in the struggle. We are here to co-operate with you; to do 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 571 

whatever we can in spite of all our sorrows, to rebuild the Un- 
ion; to restore peace; to be a blessing to the country and to 
make the American Union what our fathers intended it to be — 
the glory of America and a blessing to humanity, 

"But to you, gentlemen, who seek still to continue strife, and 
who, not satisfied with the sufferings already endured, the blood 
already shed, the waste already committed, insist that we shall 
be treated as criminals and oppressed as victims, only because 
we defended our convictions — to you we make no concessions. To 
you who followed up the war after the brave soldiers that fought 
it had made peace and gone to their homes — to you we have 
no concessions to offer. Martyrs owe no apologies to tyrants. 
And while we are ready to make every sacrifice for the Union, 
even secession, however, defeated and humbled, will confess no 
sins to fanaticism, however bigoted and exacting. 

"Yet, while we make to you no concession, we come even to 
you in no spirit of revenge. We would multiply blessings in 
common for you and for yours. We have but one ambition, and 
that is to add our poHtical power to the patriotic Union men of 
the North in order to compel fanaticism to obey the law and live 
in the Union according to the Constitution. We do not propose 
to compel you by oaths, for you who breed strife only to get 
office and power will not keep oaths. 

"Sir, We did the Union one great wrong. The Union never 
wronged the South; but we of the South did the Union one 
great wrong; and we come, as far as we can, to repair it. We 
wronged the Union grievously when we left it to be seized 
and rent and torn by the men who had denounced it as "a cove- 
nant with hell and a league with the devil." We ask you, gen- 
tlemen, of the Republican party, to rise above all your animosi- 
ties. Forget your own sins. Let us unite to repair the evils 
that distract and oppress the country. Let us turn our backs 
upon the past, and let it be said in the future that he shall be 
the greatest patriot, who shall do most to repair the worngs 
of the past and promote the glories of the future." 



CHAPTER XL. 

SHERMAN'S MARCH THROUGH GEORGIA, 

SOUTH CAROLINA AND NORTH 

CAROLINA. 

Northern historians approvingly call it "The Great March," 
Yet, it was a march of wide-spread desolation, and of unparal- 
leled barbarity, including rape and murder. Historians of the 
North boast that "it could be traced by its wide-spreading col- 
umns of smoke that rose wherever the army went." Its terri- 
ble barbarity was characterized in all its track, 30 miles wide and 
hundreds of miles in length, by burning dwellings and the wail 
of exposure and starvation. It was a march, every step of 
which zvas in violation of the code of civilised ivarfare. The 
twentieth century has pronounced it, in no uncertain terms, to 
be the one great disgrace of the civilization of the nineteenth 
century. The crimes of that march put to shame the cruelties 
of the r.ncivilized tribes of the isles of the sea. 

With this introduction we shall now give the reader a glimpse, 
and only a glimpse, of that "Great March." We can not ven- 
ture here into full details of the barbarous excesses that marked 
all the wide and long miles of that savage march. 

On the 2(\ day of September 18G4, the Mayor of Atlanta sur- 
rendered that City to Gen. Sherman. Just three days later, 
September .'ith. Gen. Sherman ordered all the civilians, male 
and female, to leave the city, giving them only five days in 
which to obey his order. Mayor Calhoun and other city offi- 
cials appealed in vain to have this order revoked, urging, in 
compassionate terms, "the woes, the horrors and suflferings, not 
to be described by words," that would result. To them Sher- 
man replied: 

"I give full credit to your statements of the distress that 
will be occasioned by it, and yet shall not revoke my order, 
because my orders are not designed to meet the humanities of 
the case." 

Alva in the Ifith centurv, in the Low Countries, sent thou- 
sands of non-combatants to the gallows. Sherman, in the mid- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFKNSE OF THE SOUTH 573 

die of the enlightened 19th Century, ruthlessly expelled in five 
days' time, thousands of defenceless women and children, to- 
gether with the lame, the maimed, and those laboring under 
the infirmities of old age, to endure woes, and horrors and 
sufferings untold. Alva, in his overwhelming pride, erected a 
statue of himself in the citadel of Antwerp, with nobles, and 
peoples at his feet, and with a bombastic inscription of his own 
praise. Sherman in overwhelming savage cruelty, in the very 
heart of the great American Republic, erected a statue of him- 
self with women and children and decrepit old age suffering 
and starving at his feet, and the cruel inscription of "My orders 
are not designed to meet the humanities of the case." 

On the 16th day of July 1865, Gen. Sherman's army camped 
on the banks of the Congaree River just opposite Columbia, the 
Capitol of South Carolina. The next day the Mayor, claiming 
that protection of life and property guaranteed to non-comba- 
tants by the laws of all civilized wars, surrendered the City to 
Col. Stone. Commanding a brigade oi the 15th corps. 

The guarantee was utterly disregarded. By order of Gen. 
Sherman Columbia was burned to ashes. Gen. Sherman, realiz- 
ing that by this act he had incurred the reproaches of the civ- 
ilized world, deliberately and falsely attributed the enormous 
crime to Gen. Wade Hampton, saying: "I saw in a Columbia 
newspaper the printed order of Gen. Wade Hampton, that on 
the approach of the Yankee army all the cotton should be burn- 
ed, and from what I saw myself, I have no hesitation in say- 
ing that he was the cause of the destruction of your city." These 
are plain, strong, and deliberate assertions of positive knowledge. 
Note the words: "I saw in a Columbia newspaper the printed 
order of Gen. Wade Hampton" etc. "From what I saw myself 
I have no hesitation in saying" etc. He could not have used 
stronger or more positive language. 

Gen. Hampton's attention having been called to this charge 
of Gen. Sherman in the published proceedings of Congress, he 
wrote on the 21 st day of April, 1S(!6, to the Hon. Beverly John- 
son, United States Senate, saying in part : 

"This charge made against me by Gen. Sherman, having been 
brought before the Senate of the United States, I am naturally 



574 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

most solicitous to vindicate myself before the same tribunal. 
But my State has no representative in that body. Those who 
should be her Constitutional representatives are debarred the 
right of entrance into those halls. There are none who have 
the right to speak for the South; none to participate in the 
legislation which governs here; none to impose the taxes she 
is called upon to pay ; and none to vindicate her sons from mis- 
representation, injustice or slander. Under these circumstances 
I appeal to you, in the confident hope you will use every effort 
to see that justice is done in this matter. 

"I deny emphatically, that any cotton was fired by my order. 
T deny that 'the citizens set fire to the thousands of bales rolled 
out into the streets.' I deny that any cotton was on fire when 
the Federal troops entered the city. I most respectfully ask 
of Congress to appoint a committee, charged with the duty of 
ascertaining, and reporting all the facts connected with the de- 
struction of Columbia and thus fixing upon the proper author 
of that enormous crime the infamy he richly deserves. I am 
willing to submit the case to any honest tribunal. Before any 
such T pledge myself to prove that I gave a positive order, by 
direction of Gen. Beauregard (Gen. Beauregard was at that 
time in command of the Confederates) that no cotton should 
be fired ; that not one bale was on fire when Gen. Sherman's 
troops took possession of the city; that he promised protection 
to the city ; and that, in spite of his solemn promise, he burned 
the city to the ground, deliberately, systematically, and atroci- 
ously. I therefore most earnestly request that Congress may 
take prompt and efficient measures to investigate this matter ful-' 
ly. Not only is this due to themselves, and to the reputation 
of the United States army, but also to justice and truth. Trust- 
ing that you will pardon me for troubling you, I am, very re- 
spectfully, your obedient servant, 

"Wade Hampton," 

This is a matily letter. It bears truth and sincerity upon 
its face. It calls for "truth and justice." For ten long years 
Gen. Sherman, by his silence, repeated and re-affirmed these 
grave charges. Then, after so long a time, from some cause, — 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 375 

perhaps the pangs of conscience, he made this very humiliating 
confession, in his published memoirss 

"In my oflkial report of this conflagration, I distinctly charg- 
ed it to Gen. Wade Hampton, and confess I did so pointedly, 
to shake the faith of his people in him." And this was Gen. 
Sherman, holding the next highest rank to Gen. Grant in the 
largest army marshalled in modern times. This was Gen. Sher- 
man, the typical official and agent of those who inaugurated and 
prosecuted the great war! Sherman confesses he officially 
lied. His falsehood, iindenied, was conspicuous for ten years 
in his official reports. It has been copied into Northern histories ; 
rehearsed in Northern schools, and proclaimed from Northern 
rostrums. It is today, after five decades lacking only one year, 
believed and taught by many educators of Northern youth. It 
is still to be found, uncontradicted, in a vast number of North- 
ern libraries, and is still believed by the masses of the rising 
generation in that great section of our common country. It 
is to refute such slanders as this that we write. 

Is it improper to ask, in this connection, if Sherman was false 
to truth, as he confesses, in regard to the destruction of Co- 
lumbia, may it not be that he was also wanting in fidelity to 
truth in other statements of his memoirs? What credence is 
the historian to give his utterances? To lie to an individual 
is a grave charge, Hozv infinitely more serious is it to lie offi- 
cially, thus placing the seal of a great government upon false- 
hood ; and hence lying to all the millions yet unborn ! An 
official falsehood is caught upon the wings of the wind and swift- 
ly borne over land and sea to all parts of the world. Truth is 
slow of foot, but sure of her ground and final triumph. As 
the days unfold the dark deeds of Northern invasion, the South 
looms higher and brighter in the sky of right and patriotism. 

That we may be clear as to future statements we here remark 
that Gen. J. E. Johnston, on the 23d day of February, 1865, 
relieved Gen. Beauregard at the request of Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 
and took command of the troops in North Carolina. 

Brevet Major George Ward Nichols, Aid-de-Camp to Gen. 
Sherman, pp. 112-3, in his "The Story of the Great March, 
from a Diary of a Staff Officer," says: "With untiring zeal 



576 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

the soldiers hunted for concealed treasures Whenever 

the army halted almost every inch of ground in the vicinity of 
the dwellings was poked by ramrods, pierced with sabers, or 
iipturnd with spades, searching for valuable personal effects, 

plate, jewelry, and other rich goods It was comical 

to see a group of these red-bearded, bare-footed, ragged veterans 
punching the unoffending earth in an apparently idiotic but 
certainly most energetic way. If they 'struck a vein' a spade 
was instantly put into requisition, and the coveted wealth was 
speedily unearthed. Nothing escaped the observation of these 

sharp-witted soldiers The fresh earth recently thrown 

up, a bed o-c flow^'rs just set out, the slightest indication of a 
change in tlif .ippearance or position, all attracted the gaze of 
the military agriculturists. ft was all fair spoils of war, 
and the search made one of the excitements of the March." 

The last sentence is proof positive, that "senrchim^ for val- 
uable personal effects, plate, jeivclry, and other rich goods." had 
the full sanction and vigorous approval of a staff officer of the 
commanding General. The fact that this searching invariably 
occurred "whenever the army halted," shows that there was 
no secret about it : and hence was known and approved bv Gen. 
Sherman himself and his entire staff. This fact accounts for 
its being "one of the excitements of the march." — one — not all. 

Another excitement was burning dwellings, churches, granar- 
ies and other buildings. Still another was that of witnessing the 
discomfort, the distress, the sufferings, and the wailings of help- 
less women and children. 

The right of an army to forage, while Tuarching through an 
enemy's country, is universally conceded by civilized nations. 
Rut no civilized nation construes the term, forage, to mean the 
right to rob citizens oi their furniture, plate, jewelry, and other 
rich valuables. The word forage is derived from ferre, mean- 
ing fodder. Hence its primary meaning is fodder. The law 
that controls all civilized nations defines it as "a search for pro- 
visions;" or "the act of feeding abroad." a right limited to the 
actual necessities of the invading army. It therefore does not 
include the right of individuals to enrich themselves by forcibly 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 577 

appropriating any kind of "rich goods" belonging to the inhab- 
itants of the invaded country. 

This construction by the invading army was the result of nec- 
essity. Convinced that the South could not be subjugated by 
civilized warfare, tTie United States Government had resort to 
the barbarously cruel method of robbery, the torch, starvation 
and murder, regardless of the attendant evils that would result, 
very naturally, from the encouragement this policy would give 
to a licentious soldiery, such as assaults upon innocent women. 
It was this same necessity that established the three American 
bastiles; that refused to exchange prisoners, thus bringing suf- 
ferings and untimely deaths to thousands of these unfortunate 
soldiers on both sides ; and the wide reaching policy of the 
general Government to spread devastation and ruin wherever 
its soldiers marched. 

Hence, this disregard of civilized warfare was not confined to 
Sherman's command. 

In the "Memoir of the Last Year of the War" by Lieut. Gen. 
Early telling of his pursuit of Major Gen. Hunter in his (Hun- 
ter's) retreat from Lynchburg, — begtm on the 19th of June, 
1864, — down the Shennandoah valley, he thus described the de- 
struction witnessed along the routes : 

"Houses had been burned, and helpless women and children 
left without shelter. The country had been stripped of pro- 
visions, and many families left without a morsel to eat. Fur- 
niture and bedding had been cut to pieces, and old men and 
women and children robbed of all the clothing they had, except 
that on their backs. Ladies' trunks had been rifled and their 
dresses torn to pieces in mere wantonness. Even the negro 
girls had lost their little finery. At Lexington he had burned 
the Military Institute with all its contents, including its library 
and scientific apparatus. Washington College has been plun- 
dered, and the statue of Washington stolen. The residence of 
ex-Governor Letcher at that place had been burned by orders, 
and but a few minutes given Mrs Letcher and her family to 
leave the house. In the country a most excellent Christian gen- 
tleman, a Mr. Creigh, had been hung, because, on a former occa- 
sion he had killed a straggling and marauding Federal soldier, 



578 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

while in the act of insulting and outraging the ladies of his 
family." 

What conclusion are we to draw from the general facts but 
this : The policy of destruction, ruin, starvation and murder zvas 
no less than that of the Government itself? It was the policy 
of all the Northern armies, in whatever section of the country 
they operated, and under whatever commanders they served. 

Some of Gen. Sherman's foragers had added to their crime 
of stealing every species of private property, the greater crime 
of assaulting women, and a few of them had been summarily 
dealt with by those whose wives and daughters they had out- 
raged, and whose homes they had made desolate. Gen. Sher- 
man made this fact a cause of comiplaint and informed Gen. 
Hampton that In retalition he had ordered a number of "Confed- 
erate prisoners of war put to death." Hampton's prompt re- 
ply was: "For every soldier of mine murdered by you, I shall 
have executed at once two of yours, giving in all cases prefer- 
ence \.o any officers zvho may he in our hands," adding that he 
had ordered his men "to shoot down all of your men who are 
caught burning houses." It is believed that this threat of Hamp- 
ton produced a salutary effect. 

On the 14th day of September ISfiS, the Rev. Dr. John Bach- 
man, pastor of the Lutheran Church, City of Charleston, S. C, 
writing from that city, makes the following statement of facts : 

"When Sherman's army came sweeping through Charleston, 
leaving a broad track of desolation for hundreds of miles, whose 
steps were accompanied with fire, and sword, and blood, remind- 
ing us of the tender mercies of the Duke of Alva, I happened 
to be at Cash's Depot, six miles from Cheraw. The owner was 
a widow, Mrs. Elerbe, seventy-one years of age. Her son, Col. 
Cash, was absent. I witnessed the barbarities inflicted on the 
aged, the widow and the young and delicate females Officers, 
high in command, were engaged tearing from the ladies their 
watches, their ear and wedding rings, the daguerreotypes of those 
they loved and cherished. A lady of delicacy and refinement, 
a personal friend, was compelled to strip before them, that they 
migfit find concealed watches and other valuables under her 
dress. A system of torture was practiced toward the weak, un- 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 579 

armed and defenseless, which as far as I know and believe, was 
universal throug-hout the whole course of that invading army. 
Before they arrived at a plantation, they inquired the names of 
the most faithful and trustworthy family servants ; these were 
immediately seized, pistols were presented at their heads, with the 
most terrific curses, they were threatened to be shot if thev did 
not assist them in finding buried treasures. If this did not suc- 
ceed, they were tied up and cruelly beaten. Several poor crea- 
tures died under the affliction. The last resort was that of 
hanging, and the officers and men of the triumphant army of 
Gen. Sherman were engaged in erecting gallows and hanging 
up these faithful and devoted servants. They were strung up 
till life was nearly extinct, when they were let down, suffered to 
rest awhile, then threatened and hung up again. It is not sur- 
prising that some should have been left hanging so long that 
they were taken down dead. Coolly and deliberately these hard- 
ened men proceeded on their wav. as if they had perpetrated 
no crime ("one of the excitements of the March"), and as if 
the God of heaven would not pursue them with his vengeance, 
But it was not alone the poor blacks (to whom they professed to 
come as librators) that were subjected to torture and death. 
Gentlemen of high character, pure and honorable and gray-head- 
ed, unconnected with the military, were dragged from their fields 
or beds, and subjected to this process of threats, beating and 
hanging. Along the whole track of Sherman's army, traces 
remain of the cruelty and inhumanity of the aged and defense- 
less. Some of those who were hung up died under the rope, 
while their cruel murderers have not only been left unapproached 
and unhung, but have been hailed as heroes and patriots The 
list of those martyrs whom the cupidity of the officers and men 
of Sherman's army sacrificed to their thirst for gold and silver, 
is large and most revolting. If the editors of this paper will 
give their consent to publish it, I will give it in full, attested by 
the names of the purest and best men and women of our 
Southern land. 

"I, who have been a witness to these acts of barbarity that 
are revolting to every feeling of humanity and mercy, was doom- 
ed to feel in my own person the eflFects of the avarice, cruelty 



580 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

and despotism which characterized the men of that army. I was 
the only male guardian of the refined and delicate females who 
had fled there for protection and shelter. I soon ascertained 
the plan that was adopted in this wholesale system of plunder, 
insult, blasphemy and brutality. The first that came was headed 
by officers, from a colonel to a lieutenant, who acted with seem- 
ing politeness, and told me that they only came to secure our 
firearms, and when these were delivered up nothing in the house 
should be touched. Out of the house, they said, they were au- 
thorized to press forage for their large army. I told them that 
along the whole line of the march of Sherman's army, from Co- 
lumbia to Cheraw, it had been ascertained that ladies had been 
robbed and personally insulted. I asked for a guard to protect 
the females. They said that there was no necessity for this. 
If any did not treat the ladies with proper respect, I might blow 
their brains out. 'But,' said I, 'You have taken away our arm,s 
and we are defenseless.' They did not blush much, and made 
no reply, shortly after this came the second party before the 
first had left. They demanded the keys to the ladies' drawers, took 
away such articles as they wanted, then locked the drawers and 
put the keys into their pockets. In the meantime they gathered 
up the spoons, knives, forks, towels, table-cloths, etc. As they 
were carrying them ofiF I appealed to the officers of the first 
party ; they ordered the men to put back the things ; the officer 
of the second party said he 'would see them d — d first ;' and 
without further ado, packed them up, and they glanced at each 
other and smiled. The elegant carriage and all the vehicles 
on the premises were seized and filled with bacon and other 
plunder. The smokehouses were emptied of their contents and 
carried ofif. Every head of poultry was seized and flung over 
their mules, and they presented the hideous picture in some of 
the scenes in 'Forty Thieves.' Every article of harness they 
did not wish was cut in pices. 

"By this time the first and second parties had left, and a third 
appeared on the field. They demanded the keys of the drawers; 
and, on being informed they had been carried oflf, cooly and de- 
liberately proceeded to break open the locks, took what they 
wanted, and when we uttered words of complaint were cursed. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 581 

Every horse, mule, carriage, even to the carts, was taken away 
for hundreds of miles, the last animal that cultivated the wid- 
ow's cornfield, and the vehicles that once bore them to the house 
of worship, were carried off or broken into pieces and burned. 

"The first party that came promised to leave ten days' provi- 
sions, the rest they carried off. An hour afterwards, other hordes 
of marauders from the same army came and demanded the last 
pound of bacon and the last quart of meal. On Sunday the 
negroes were dressed in their best suits. They were kicked and 
knocked down and robbed of all their clothing, and they came 
to us in their shirt sleeves, having lost (their hats, clothes 
and shoes. Most of our own clothes had been hid in the woods. 
The negroes who had assisted in removing them were beaten 
and threatened with death, and compelled to show them where 
they were concealed. They cut open the trunks, threw my man- 
uscripts and devotional books into a mud-hole, stole the ladies' 
jewelry, hair ornaments, etc., tore many garments into tatters, 
or gave the rest to negro women to bribe them into criminal 
intercourse. These women afterwards returned to us those ar- 
ticles that, after the mutilations, were scarcely worth preserving. 
The plantation of one hundred and sixty negroes, was some dis- 
tance from the house, and to this place successive parties of fifty 
at a time resorted for three long days and nights, the husbands 
and fathers being fired at and compelled to fly to the woods. 

"Now commenced scenes of licentiousness brutality, and rav- 
ishment that have scarcely had an equal in the ages of heathen 
barbarity. I conversed with aged men and women, who were 
witnesses of these infamous acts of Sherman's unbridled sol- 
diery, and several of them, from the cruel treatment they had 

received, were confined to their beds for weeks afterward 

During this time the fourth party whom I was informed by 
others, we had the most reason to dread, had made their ap- 
pearance. They came, as they said, in the name of 'the great 
(jeneral Sherman who was next to God Almighty.' They cAme 
to burn and lay in ashes all that was left. They had burned 
bridges and depots, cotton gins, mills, barns and stables. They 

swore they would make the d d rebel women pound their corn 

with rocks, and eat their raw meal without cooking. They 



582 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

succeeded in thousands of instances. I walked out at night, 
and the innumerable fires that were burning as far as the eye 
could reach, in hundreds of places, illuminated the whole heav- 
ens, and testified to the vindictive barbarity of the foe. I pre- 
sume they had orders not to burn occupied houses, but they 
strove all in their power to compel families to fly from their 
houses that they might afterward burn them. The neighborhood 
was filled with refugees who had been compelled to fly from 
their plantations on the seaboard. As soon as they had fled, 
the torch was applied, and for hundreds of miles, these elegant 
mansions, once the ornament and pride of our inland country, 
were burned to the ground. 

"All manner of expedients were adopted to make the resi- 
dents leave their homes for the second time. I heard them say- 
ing 'this is too large a house to be left standing, we must con- 
trive to iDurn it.' Canisters of powder were placed all around 
the house, and an expedient resorted to that promised almost 
certain success. The house was to be burned down by firing 
the out-buildings. These were so near each other that firing of 
the one would lead to the destruction of all. I had already 
succeeded in having a few bales of cotton rolled out of the 
building, and hoped, if they had to be burned, the rest would 
also be rolled out, which could have been done in ten minutes 
by several hundred men who were looking on, gloating over 
the prospect of another elegant mansion in South Carolina being 
left in ashes. The torch was applied, and soon the large store- 
house was on fire. This communicated to several other build- 
ings in the vicinity, which, one by one, were burned to the 
ground. At length the fire reached the smokehouse, where they 
had already carried oflF the bacon of two hundred and fifty 
hogs. This was burned, and the fire was now rapidly approach- 
ing the kitchen which was so near the dwelling house that, should 
the former burn, the destruction of the large and noble edifice 
would be inevitable. 

"A Captain of the United States service, a native of England, 
whose name I would like to mention here, if I did not fear to 
bring down upon him the censure of the abolitionists as a friend 
to the rebels, mounted the roof, and the wet blankets we sent 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 5^3 

up to him prevented the now smoking roof from bursting into 
flames. I called for help to assist us in bringing water from a 
deep well; a young lieutenant stepped up, condemned the in- 
famous conduct of the burners, and called on his company for 
aid ; a portion of them came cheerfully to our assistance ; the 
wind seemed almost by a miracle to subside; the house was 
saved, and the trembling females thanked God for their de- 
liverance. All this time about one hundred mounted men were 
looking on, refusing to raise a hand to help us; laughing at the 
idea that no efforts of ours could save the house from the flames. 

"I had assisted in laying the foundtaion and dedicating the 
Lutheran Church at Colurribia, and there, near its walls, had 
recently been laid the remains of one who was dearer to me th;in 
Hfe itself. To set that brick church on fire from below was 
imipossible. The building stood by itself on a square but little 
built up. One of Sherman's burners was sent up to the roof. 
He was seen applying the torch to the cupola. The church was 
burned to the ground, and the grave of my loved one desecrated. 
The story circulated, that the citizens had set their own city on 
fire, is utterly untrue, and only reflects dishonor on those who 
vilely perpetrated it. Gen. Sherman had his army under con- 
trol. The burning was by his orders, and ceased when he gave 
command. 

"I was now doomed to experience in person the effects of 
avarice and barbarous cruelty. The robbers had been in- 
formed in the neighborhood that the family which I was pro- 
tecting had buried one hundred thousand dollars in gold and 
silver. They first demanded my watch, which I had effectual- 
ly secured from their grasp. They then asked me where the 
money had been hid. I told them I knew nothing about it, 
and did not believe there was a thousand dollars worth in all, 
and what there was had been carried off by the owner, Col. 
Cash. All this was literally true. They then concluded to try 
an experiment on me, which had proved so successful in hun- 
dreds of other cases. Cooly and deliberately they prepared to 
inflict torture on a defenseless gray-headed old man. They 
carried me behind a stable, and once again demanded where the 
money was buried, or 'I should be sent to hell in five minutes.* 



584 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

They cocked their pistols and held them to my head. I told 
them to fire away. One of them a square-built broad-faced, 
large-mouthed, clumsey lieutenant, who had the face of a demon, 
and who did not utter five words without an awful blasphemy, 
now kicked me in the stomach until I fell breathless and pros- 
trate. As soon as I was able, I rose again. He once more 
asked me where the silver was. I answered as before, 'I do 
not know.' With his elephant foot he kicked me on my back 
till I fell again. Once more I arose, and he put the same ques- 
tion to me. T was nearly breathless but answered as before. 
Thus was I either kicked or knocked down seven or eight times. 
I then told him it was perfectly useless for him to continue his 
threats or his blows. He might shoot me if he chose. I was 
ready and would not budge an inch, but requested him not to 
bruise and batter an unarmed, defenseless old man. 'Now,' 
said he, 'I'll try a new plan. How would you like to have 
both your arms cut oflF?' He did not wait for an answer, but 
with his heavy sheathed sword, struck me on my left arm, near 
the shoulder. I heard it crack ; it hung powerless at my side, 
and I supposed it was broken. He then repeated the blow on 
the other arm. The pain was most excruciating, and it was 
several days before I could carve my food, or take my arm out 
of a sling, and it was black and blue for weeks. (I refer to 
Dr. Kollock of Cheraw). At that moment the ladies, headed 
by my daughter, who had only then been made aware of the 
brutality practiced upon me, rushed from the house, and came 
flying to my rescue. 'You dare not murder my father,' said 
my child; he has been a minister in the same church for fifty 
years, and God has always protected him, and will protect him.* 
'Do you believe in a God, Miss ?' said one of the brutal wretches ; 
'I don't believe in a God, a heaven, nor a hell.' 'Carry me,' 
said I, 'to your General.' I did not intend to go to Gen. Sher- 
man who was at Cheraw, from whom, I was informed, no re- 
dress could be obtained, but to a General in the neighborhood., 
said to be a religious man. Our horses and carriages had all 
been taken away, and I was too much bruised to be able to walk. 
The other young officers came crowding around very officially 
telling me that they would represent the case to the Genearl, 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 585 

and that they would have him shot by 10 o'clock the next morn- 
ing. I saw the winks and glances that were exchanged between 
them. Every one gave a different name to the officers. The 
brute reiriained unpunished, as I saw him on the following morn- 
ing, as insolent and profane as he had been the preceding day.. . . 
"A few weeks after this I was sent for to perform a paro- 
chial duty at Mars Bluff, some twenty miles distant. Arriving 
at Florence in the vicinity, I was met by a crowd of young men 
connected with the militia. They were excited to the highest 
pitch of rage, and thirsted for revenge. They believed that 
among the prisoners that had just arrived on the railroad car, 
on their way to Sumter, were the very men who committed such 
horrible outrages in the neighborhood. Many of their houses 
had been laid in ashes. They had been robbed of every means 
of support. Their horses had been seized ; their cattle and their 
hogs bayoneted ; their mothers and sisters had been insulted, and 
robbed of their watches, ear and wedding rings. Some of their 
parents had been murdered in cold blood. The aged pastor, 
to whose voice they had so often listened, had been kicked and 
knocked down by repeated blows, and his hoary head had been 
dragged about in the sand. They entreated me to examine 
the prisoners and see whether I could identify the men that had 
inflicted such barbarities on me. I told them I would do so, 
provided they would remain where they were and not follow 
me. The prisoners saw me at a distance, held down their guilty 
heads, and trembled like aspen leaves. All cruel men are cow- 
ards. One of my arms was still in the sling. With the other 
I raised some of their hats. They all begged for mercy. I 
said to them, 'the other day you were tigers. You are sheep 
now.' But a hideous object soon arrested my attention. There 
Tvas that brutal enemy — the vulgar, swaggering lieutenant, who 
had ridden up to the steps of the house, insulted the ladies, and 
beaten me most unmercifully. I approached him slowly, and, 
in a whisper asked him : 'Do you know me, sir ?' — 'the old man 
whose pockets you first searched, to see whether he might not 
have a penknife to defend himself, and then kicked and knocked 
him down with your fist and heavy scabbard?' He presented 
the picture of an arrant coward, and in a trembling voice im- 



586 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

plored me to have mercy : 'Don't let me be shot ; have pity ! 
Old man, beg for me! I won't do it again. For God's sake 
save me! O God, help me!' 'Did you not tell my daughter 
There was no God ? Why call on him now ?' Oh, I have chang- 
ed my mind; I believe in a God now.' I turned and saw the 
impatient, flushed, and indignant crowd approaching. 'What 
are they going to do with me?' said he. 'Do you hear that 
sound, — click, click?' 'Yes,' said he, they are cocking their 
pistols. 'True' said I, 'and if I raise a finger you will have a 
dozen bullets through your brain.' 'Then I will go to hell; 
don't let them kill me. O Lord, have mercy !' 'Speak low,' 
said I, 'and don't open your lips.' The men advanced. Al- 
ready one had pulled me by the coat. 'Show us the men.' I 
gave no clew by which the guilty could be identified. I walked 
slowly through the cars, entered the waiting carriage and drove 
off." 

In these atrocities we have the blackest record, all things 
considered, in history. It was savagery on the largest scale, 
and under the direction of the most competent organized skill, 
it was divided into four separate and well instructed bands of 
greed, rape, licentiousness and murder, each succeeding band 
being more atrocious than the one just preceding it. The three 
bands in advance left nothing but empty dwellings and empty 
out buildings. The fourth and last band applied the torch, and 
used the gallows, and other kindred cruelties in search of valua- 
bles. It was 

"The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke 
That ever wall-eyed wrath, or staring rage 
Presented to the tears of helpless victims." 



A CONTRAST. 



There was another army that invaded an enemy's territory. 
It, too, was on American soil, and in the sixties. It was com- 
manded by the peerless Lee. Sherman's orders were not design- 
ed to meet the humanities of the case ;" but Lee's were in full 
sympathy with all that is tender and true. Sherman's march 
was characterized by smouldering ruins and beastly brutalities ; 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 587 

Lee's by its humanities. "The excitements" of Sherman's 
"march" werei theft, rapine, inordinate desires, and murder. 
Those of Lee's army were deeds of kindness, and their assur- 
ing words : 'We make no war upon non-combatants." The 
record of Sherman's army is that of unciviHzed barbarity ; that 
of Lee's is written on the loftiest peaks of the civilization of 
the nineteenth century. 

Thus the two records stand. The one is as black as night. 
The other is as bright as the full orbed sun. We are told by 
Northern writers if Dazns had been more like Lincoln the Con- 
federacy zvould not have failed. Davis was incapable of some 
things. And to his honor, he could not endorse uncivilized 
methods. The Confederacy went down, it is true, but like the 
cloudless sun in the west. All the Confederacy stood for 
during its short but glorious life, is as illuminating and enduring 
as the bright orb of that cloudless sun ; and just as sure as that 
sun will rise again to refresh and warm the earth, just so sure 
will the Confederate cause survive its short night of apparent 
defeat, and live again to refresh and warm the patriot hearts 
of all coming generations, and restore to this great American 
Republic the true principlesy of Constitutional liberty. 



CHAPTER XLL 
THE CONFEDERATE NAVY. 

From an address delivered before Camp 171 U. C. V. of 
Washington, D. C, by Perry M. DeLeon, on Navies in War, 
and the Confederate Navy in the War Betzveen the States, we 
make the following extract: 

Semmes on the Alabama and Sumter destroyed 87 ships 

He would have destroyed the Kearsage had the shell 
planted in her rudder port exploded. 

Waddell on the Shendoah destroyed 36 ships 

Maffitt, Barney and Morris on the Florida, destroyed. 37 ships 

Wood on the Tallahassee destroyed 39 ships 

Read on the Clarence and Tacony destroyed 23 ships 

Maury on the Georgia destroyed 8 ships 

Wilkinson on the Chickamauga destroyed 4 ships 

Other vessels destroyed 35 ships 

Total number destroyed 259 

Merchantmen destroyed valued at $18,000,000. 
Three things make my gorge rise: First, Calling the war 
between the States a rebellion; second, calling our gallant naval 
officers pirates, and our cruisers privateers ; and third, accusing 
the officers who resigned from the old service, of violating their 
oaths, and being guilty of ingratitude to a government which 
educated them. That man has read history in vain who ap- 
plies the term rebellion to a contest between sovereign States. 
The charge of piracy is too utterly contemptible and mendacious 
to need replv. If Semmes was a pirate, so was Farragut. If 
the Alabama was a privateer so was the Hartford, and every 
Federal ship that captured a vessel flying a Confederate flag 
engaged in commerce. The charge of piracy and ingratitude 
is likewise utterly mendacious and contemptible. During and 
since the war, Semmes was honored by the nations wherever he 
went. England, the greatest of sea-powers, especially doing 
him homage, the British naval officers and others presenting 
him with a sword after the Alabama met her glorious death. 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 589 

As to ingratitude the charge is simply absurd ; the expenses 
of their education were paid by both the North and South, the 
South contributing far more than her share. These charges 
were made during the war by unprincipled politicians to bring 
our cause into disrepute. They have been repeated since the 
war by mendacious historians, or rather romancers who man- 
ufacture history to suit their fanaticism. As to privateers, it 
is thus legally defined : "A privateer is an armed vessel be- 
longing to private parties, hence the name. It operates under 
a letter of marque issued by the Government of which her own- 
ers are subjects or citizens, to protect from being treated as a 
pirate." 

A man-of-war is a vessel belonging to either a de jure or a 
de facto government and cruises under a regular commission, 
her officers being also commissioned by the same power. The 
Southern Confederacy was not only a de facto government but 
was recognized as a belligerent. So much for balderdash cur- 
rent during the war and the ravings of fanatical sectionalists of 
today. 

The war found the South without ships, without seamen, with 
no commercial marine, and, at first with one navy yard, later 
on with none, with no powder works, no ordinance foundries, 
with but few machine shops, few ship carpenters, and not a 
single shop in zvhich the simplest marine engine could be con- 
structed. Our energetic and efficient secretary of the Navy, 
Hon. Stephen R. Mallory of Florida, had indeed a herculean 
task; and the wonder is that he accomplished so much with 
means so scant. It is but truth to state that it was as difficult 
for him to procure iron for his ironclads as for the United 
States Secretary Wells to build a gunboat. The story of our 
gallant little navy is a sad but glorious one. 

Despite the facts I have mentioned the genius of the naval 
officers of the South electrified the world. John M. Brooke, 
Williamson and Porter, revolutionized naval warfare in the con- 
struction of the famous Virginia, commonly called the Merri- 
mac, as Ericson likewise did with the Monitor. Their famous 
contests made wooden warships a thing of the past. Brooke 
first taught how to rifle smooth-bore guns, and ^ilso taught gim- 



590 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

makers that great guns could be made almost non-explosive by 
shrinking bands over their breeches, and their effectiveness in- 
creased to an extent to excite the wonder and admiration of 
all seamen. Hunter Davidson first made torpedoes effective for 
attack and defense. Gallant sailor that he was, he was as great 
in action as in the laboratory. 

I challenge the world to produce a more able, more gallant, 
more unselfish band of patriots than the peerless officers who, 
born in the South, and bred under the Stars and Stripes, were to 
win deathless fame under the Stars and Bars. Loving the old 
flag with a devotion sailors only know, glorymg in its tradi- 
tions, proud of its achievements, and their own part therein, 
caring naught and oft knowing naught of political issues, leav- 
ing their homes as boys, and far removed by their profession 
from early friends and associations and the burning issues of 
the day, their devotion to their native South was sublime. 

But alas ! this sentiment was far from general. Leaving, 
as I have said, their States as boys, dissociated from the "ties 
that bind," very many Southern naval officers had ceased to 
regard their native States as sovereign, which they were, and 
believed their allegiance due to the flag that floated over them. 
That brilliant and original thinker. Governor Henry A. Wise, 
of Virginia, was wiser than many thought when he advised the 
South to fight in the Union and under the Stars and Stripes. 
The sentiment of the Union was a tremendous factor, and sent 
tens of thousands into the Federal ranks. Of Southern born 
line officers, including commanders and lieutenants, 126 resign- 
ed, 137 remained in the Federal Navy; of the junior officers, 
masters and midshipmen eleven resigned, twenty-five did not; 
of the acting midshipmen, boys at the Naval Academy, 106 re- 
signed, twenty-two did not; of the staff officers, paymaster, and 
surgeons 38 resigned, 56 did not ; taking the total, 299 followed 
the Stars and Bars, 288 the Stars and Stripes ; eliminating the 
midshipmen, boys as I have said, 193 resigned, 260 did not. In 
a word, excluding the "middies" fresh from home and subject 
to the order of their parents, a considerable majority of the 
Naval officers elected to remain in the United States Navy. Of 
the Marine Corps 14 resigned, 14 remained. * * * * 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 591 

We can not question the motives of any of these men. I for 
one with the flag floating over me for five years w^hile Consul 
General in South America, can well understand the devotion 
felt by naval officers for the Flag, and I do not doubt for a 
moment that they were true to their convictions, and did what 
they deemed their duty ; yet it is painful to reflect that the most 
vital wounds the South received were inflicted by her own sons — 
Farragut, Drayton, S. P. Lee, Winslow, Goldsboro, et al. This 
painful fact recalls these beautiful lines of Byron : 

"So the struck eagle stretched upon the plain. 
No more thro' rolling clouds to soar again, 

Viewed his own feathers in the fatal dart 
And winged shaft that quivered in his heart. 

Keen was hil pang, but keener far to feel. 
He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel. 

While the same plumage that had warmed his nest 
Drank the last life-drop from his bleeding breast." 

The naval officers who resigned gave up their means of live- 
lihood, sacrificed their careers, and severed the ties of a life- 
time for a cause, the success of which some of them like Com- 
modore Ingraham believed to be at least doubtful. Patriotism 
and self-sacrifice could no farther go. 

With the officers of the army it was quite diflferent. They 
were on the spot, conversant with the political questions of the 
day, in the thick of the sectional storm which raged over the 
country, swayed by the passions of the hour, and imbued with 
the sentiments of their friends and kindred. Hence when the 
die was cast nearly all of them espoused the cause of the South, 
even the great Lee, who declined to become the generalissimo 
of the Union Forces, because he belived his allegiance was due 
to his beloved Virginia, and his duty required him to cling to 
her, and obey her commands. Sordid indeed is the soul which 
questions his sincerity or asperses his memory. 

Sad was the fate of the older Confederate States Naval offi- 
cers; bred on the deep, unfamiliar with aflFairs, knowing naught 
but their profession, separated thereby from the world, its flue- 



592 RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 

tuations and its concerns, the end found them broken in for- 
tune, without a profession, bowed down with despair, utterly 
unfitted to fight the battle of life, and in the Southern cataclysm 
their countrymen too poor to aid them, or reward their ser^'ices. 
A number of officers succumbed to despair and died in pov- 
erty ; others were glad to receive any crumb that fell to their 

1 O^ ^ Jjc ^ ^ ^ 

Who then were they? Tattnall had achieved an international 
reputation, as had Ingraham, Hollins and Maury. The first at 
Periho, declaring that blood was thicker than water, had saved 
an English warship from destruction and earned the plaudits 
of Britain. Ingraham at Smyrna had cleared his ship for ac- 
tion and demanded from Austria the release of the Hungarian 
patriot, Kostza, under threat of opening fire on the Hussar, a 
vessel somewhat superior to his own, on which the prisoner 
was held, — the threat was effective — Austria gave up the ca|>- 
tive, and Congress voted Ingraham a medal. Hollins at 
Georgetown had given the snuff-colored Dagos a needed les- 
son. Last and greatest of all was Matthew F. Maury, the first 
of naval scientists, who did more for the marine than any man 
who had ever lived. His works, Physical Geography of the 
Sea, Gulf Stream, Ocean Lanes, are his monument, more en- 
during than brass. He it was who first proposed an Atlantic 
cable, which was laid in the line he had mapped out. Twelve 
nations conferred orders of knighthood upon him; Cambridge 
and the great Universities of Europe had honored him. When 
he resigned, both before and after the war, the greatest gov- 
ernments of Europe besought him to accept high position, but 
like Lee he clung to his beloved Virginia, and ended his life 
as a Professor at the Virginia Military Institute. Thus Vir- 
ginia has given to the world two of the greatest of men, Maury 
and Lee, as in earlier days a Washington, a Jefferson, a Henry, 
a Marshall, a Mason, and many more. 

Eulogy has exhausted itself in characterizing Lee. His name 
is honored by the North, enshrined in the hearts of the South, 
and lauded bv the whole civilized world. 



INDEX 



Abolition Press, 390, 461-2, 465 
Absolutism, 103, 367, 439, 444 450, 458, 

400, 459 
Adams. Cbarles Francis, 71-5, 237-8, 246, 

2500, 200-3, 267-S, 278-9, 178-9, 283, 

200-1, .300-5, 419, 423. 363. 365. 4.59 
Adams, John Quincy, 76, 226, 402-5, 434, 

443, 448-9, 4.59, 434 
Adamses, the. .320 
Abrasion, 505-518 
Age of Reason, 470 
Aggressions, 93, 166-7, 177, ISO, 190, 

434, 443-9, 450-2. 4.56 
Albany Argus, 296 
Alabama. .358 
Alfieri. 482, 480, 475 
Allegiance. 52.5 
Altoona. 485 
Alva. 567. 573, 578 
Ambassadors, Confederate, 168-9 
American Statesmen, 377. 427 
American bastiles. 445. 450. 458. 462 
Anderson, Major Robert, 341-3, .348, 

350 
Andersonville 644, 566, 56.5, 547, 545, 

549-.52, 555 
Anklets, 504, 506 
Annapolis Convention, .54 
Antietam. 424 
Anti-Constitutional Party. 51, 1.36-7, 149, 

195, 113-14. 127, 1.32, 136, 19.5, 436, 445- 

6, 450-7. 190-1 
Anti-Slavery Societies, North and South 

41 
Appeal, 181 
Argus, The, 439 
Aristotle, 473 
Arrest of Davis, 488 
Assassination, 490 513, 514 
Atlas, The, 439 



Bachman, Rev. Dr. John, 578 

Bail. 528 

Baker, Edward H., 470 

Baker, Gen. L. C. 550 

Baldwin, 120 

Baltimore. 370, 367, 374, 178 

Banks, Gen., 370, 421 

Barnes, Surgeon Gen., 562 

Barney, 588 

Basis of War, 450 

Bastiles, American, 102, 375-6, 394, 427, 

445-.50, 483, 577 
Bastile, French 374-6 
Bates. Gen., 345-6, 378, 388-9 
Beach, 541 

Beauregard, Gen.. 335, 342-8.. ^51-2, 574 
Bed of Davis. 516 
Beginning of the Revolution. 27 
Bell, Everett, 167 
Bibb, Judge, 207, 213, 224 
Bible and Slavery, 33 
Bingham, Judge J. K., 302 
Birney, Jas. C., 116 
Blackest of Records, 576 
Blaine, Jas. G„ 544, 554, 550, 558, .566- 

8 
Blaine, Governor Austin. 303 
Blake, 479, 482 



Bland, Richard, 18 

Blair, 349 

Blunt, William, 118 

Boone, Daniel, 463 

Border States, 4.50, 410-17. 420-4 431, 

457, 360, 487, 28, 4.S0 
Brady, 526-7 

B'recken ridge, Rev. R. J., 492 
Bright, 556 

Brooke, John M., 589 
Brown, John 177, 461-8 
Brown, Major, 36S-9 
Browning, 478 
Brutality. .581 
Bryan. 474, .591 
Buchanan, Pres., 390 
Burke. Edmond, .509 
Burnside. Gen., 417 
Burton, Gen., 5.31-2 
Bureau of :\Iilitary Justice, 465 
B'ush. Sarah, 4(55 
Butler, Gen., 569, 570, .565 



Caution, 520 

Chancellorsville, .5.34 

Chandler, Dis. Atty., 527. 531 

Charleston Convention, 178 

Chase. Judge, 249. 345-6. .378, 388, 197- 

9, .521-4: .527-9. .5.36-9, .540-1 
Chateaubriand, 474, 479, 482 
ChatJerton. 478. 482 
Cheraw, .578- 9 
Chew. .351-2 

Chicago Convention, 178 
Chicago Minister, 483 
Chicago Plati'orm, 177-8. 182. 18.5-6. 42.5, 

4.37-9, 446-7, 452. 516, 529. 454-5 
Chickamauga, The, 588 
Chisolm vs. Georgia, 247 
Christ, 534 

Christian. .Tudge John L., 241 
Church at Columbi.T, .582 
Centralism. 62, 107-8, 187 
Civilized Warfare. 525 
Clarence, The, 588 
Clark. Horace F., 5.33 
Clay. Clement C, 495-6. 498, 500, 493, 

519 
Cla.v, Henry. 2] 3-14, 223-24. .570 
Cleary, W. C, 490 
Cleveland, Grover, 409 
Clifford, Judge, 243 
Coercion. 4.37, 440. 446-7 
Cold Harbor. .5.34 
Colgate, Isaac. 467 
Colonies, 33, 34 
Comment by Thorpe, 179 
Commisi=oiners. Peace. 318-20, 326, 336. 

340. 346, 348. 485, 510 
Committee of Investigation. 493 
Committee of the States, 2&5 
Committee of Thirteen, 164 
Common Law. 177, 285 
Communitv Independence, 93 
Compact. 60. 70-3. 87, 90-7 106, 260. 275 

322. 161, 176. 322. 161, 176, 229, 2.30, 

2.31, 5.3, 20S. 237 
Company of Hanover, 24 
Compensation for Slaves, 199 



594 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 



Compromise, 48. 145, 164, 176, 323 
Confederacy. 63-5, 92-3, 107, 131, 326, 

329, 403. 5(il, 4S8, 564, 566, 589 
Confederate Constitution, 326 
Confederate Navy, 411, 588 
Confederate Prisoners, 555 
Confederalon, 53, 176 
Confederation Act, 404-6 
Congress, the tJ. S. Assembled, 53, 195, 

308, 333, 464 
Connecticut, 72, 92, 95 
Conover. Sanford, 475, 494-5 
Conservatism, 395 
Conspirators, 163-9, 169. 183, 393, 493, 

405, 509 
Constitution, U. S., 161-9, 177, 182, 185- 

6, 412-4, 429, 463-9, 516, 521-2, 525-7, 

538, 542 
Contradictions, 441 
Conventions of So. States, 183 
Cooper Institute Speech. 113-9, 120-3, 

162, 319, 486, 533, 124, 129, 130-4 
"Cooper Union." 415 
Copperhead, 427 
Corn -Dances, 31 
Corn-Feasts,, 30 
Corn-Sbucljiugs, .30 
Corn-Totings, 31 
Coxe, 98-107 
Craven. Dr., 495, 498, 502 5, 507, 510-11, 

515 518-19 
Crawford, Judge, 347-8, 352 
Creed-Lincoln's, 471 
Creigli, 577 
Crimes, 461 
Crisis, 58 
Crittendon Resolutions, 189. 301, 320, 

164 
Custom House, 531-2, 534 

Dabney, Gen., 241-4 

Dana, 495. 497-8, 492-3, 50.3, 505, 517, 

540-2, 565 
"Dark Days." The" 414, 456-7, 485-6 
Davenport, Isaac. 533 
Davidson. Hunter, 520 
Davis, Jefferson, 121, 165-0, 189, 232, 

239, 241, 243-5, 330-3. 384, 426, 450, 

448-9, 495-9, 500-13, 514-9, 520-9, 530-9, 

540-9. 550-9, 560-9, 570-9, 580-9, 590 0, 

567-70 
Dayton, Johnson, 121 
Decision of Court, 541 
Declaration of Independence, 4, 53, 92, 

94, 104, 204, 329, 355 
DeLeon, Perry M., 588 
Delusion, 392-4, 436-7, 440-5, 449, 450, 

6, 476 
Demands of the South, 146-9, 150 
Democracy, 548. 4.58. 461 
Demolishing the Supreme Court, 130. 

331, 347, 400 
Desire, The, 34 
Despotism, 103, 439-441, 480-6, 458, 400, 

549 
Detroit Free Press, 300 
Devil, The, 525-6, 527 
Diary, 575 
Diet, 556 

Disclosures (?) 116-120 
Disregard of Constitution, 182-5 
District of Columbia, 420, 489 
Divided Sovereignty. 246, 250, 263, 282 
Dis, Gen., 420 



Doolady, 507 

Douglas, 115, 151, 191, 163, 307, 33S, 

329, 520 
Douglas, Sarah, 494 
Drake, 467 

Draper, John W,, 366 7 
Dred Scott. 50 
Drayton, 591 

Dryden, 343, 346-7, 360, 473 
Dunmore, Gen., 23, 26-8 



Early, Gen., 577 

Eccentricity, 475-480, 482, 475, 478-9 

Edwards, Matilda, 469 

Eleventh Amendment. 22.3. 2(M 

Eighteenth Century Reactionists, 320- 

2 
Eighth Wonder of the World, 443 
Eg'otism, 387-8. 380, 46S. 482 
Elections in 1862, 4.56-7 
Eleven States, The, 107, 111 
Elworth, 252, 306 
Emancipation, 44, 391. 411-15, 420 2. 427, 

441-2, 248-9, 450-5, 4,85-6 z 

Enforcing the Law, 484 
England, 485, 507-8 
Europe, 503, 507 
Evarts, 531, 533-5, 530. 540, 243 
Events Shaping, 28 
Everett, 397 

Exchange, 548, 558, 563-5. 578 
Excitements of the March, 587 
Excuses, 522 
Eye Witnesses, 597 



Fairfield. Gov., 152 

Pall of the Confederacy 488 

Family of Davis. 490-1, 595 

False Issues, 142 

False Statesments, 138 

False War-Power, 440-2, 445. 401, 4.50 

Faragut, 588 591 

Farino, 480 

Fate. 265, 291, 423, 487 

Federal Government. 81-9, 117-8. 76-9 

80, 36. 499, 502, 511, 520-5. 526 530. 

536-7, 542, 554. 559, 503, 535, 541, 561 
Federals, 489-90, 511 
Federal Prisoners. 561 
Felon 502. 518, 535, 503 
Female Garb, 491-2, 502 
Few of Ga., 118 
Filmore, 580 

Fifty Years Ago Today, 381-3 
Fitzsimmons, 118-119 
Florida, 358 

Force Against a State, 184 
Force Bill, 208-9 
Foreigners, 96. 356 
Fort Baltimore, 374 
Fort Delaware, 557 
Fort Lafayette, 373-4 
Fort McHenry, 345, 370. 372 _ 

Fortress Monroe, 385, 495, 499, 506. ol6. 

519, 527, 531 
Fort Pickens, 348, 353. 357, 347-8 
Fort Sumter. 348-9, 350-8, 342, 364-5. 334- 

.540, 377-380, 437, 485. 
"Forty Thieves." 580 
Four Parties, The, 588 
Fourteenth Amendment, 537 
Foxe, 349, 350. 365 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 595 



France, 330, 4S5 

Franklin, 306 

Free Blacks in N. in IsdO 37 

Free Blacks in S. in ISOO, 37 



Garfield. 568 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 41 

Gates, 94 

Genius, 4!73i, 475 

Georgia, 72, 93, 120 

Georgia, The, 588 

Gerry, 109, 110,59 

Goethe, 477 

Goldboro. 591 

Goldsmith, 482, 474, 477 

Gordy, J. P., 27S-9, 34S. 247 

Governmental Organic Growih, 256 

Grand Army Post, 492 

Grant, Gen., 381, 427, 488, 518, 529, 551, 

560 
Greely 296-7, 360. 365, 445, 533, 409, 410 
Gunboat Maumee, 495 



Institution of Slaverq, 33 
Iredell, Justice, 203, 247, 282 
Irrepressible Conflict, 180-9 



Jackson, David K., 533 

Jackson, Hickory, 206-8, 21.3, 223 

409, 438-450 
Jackson, Stonewall, 241, 381, 431, 

507 
Jay, Chieif Justice. 203 
Jefferson, Thos., 163-4, 187, 225, 251, 

381, 438, 459 
Jeffries, 533 
Jewelry, 576 
Johnson, Andrew, 30], 421, 402, 495. 

539 521 
Johnson. Ben. 482, 474-5, 541 
Johnston. Joe. 241, .529, 539. 488-9 
Johnston, Sidney, 241. 526 
Johnston, Preston, 491 
Johnston, Beverly, 57.3 
Jones, Dr. Joseph, 547, 562 
Julian, 590-7 



220, 
53:), 

307, 



Hague, 221, 264, 273 

Hale, Edward Everett Jr., 377-9, 381, 

397, 449, 485 
Hallec, Gen., 495-7 
Hallucinations, 481, 474 -ISO, 482 
Hamilton. 50, 63, 67, 107, 125-6. 248-9, 

250-1, 306, 309, 315, 59, 62, 397 
Hamlin's History (Constitutional), 343- 

345 
Hampton, Gen., 573-4, 578 
Hampton Roads. 495 
Hanks, John, 463 
Hanks, Nancy. 463-4 
Hapgood, 418, 420, 449, 465-470. 483, 

461, 468, 473 
Harper's Weekly, 416-7 
Harrison, Burton N. 491, 5.32 
Hartford, The, 588 
Hartford Convention. 268. 270 
Hastings, Warren, 538-9 
Hathaway, R. Barton, 533 
Henry, Patrick, 18-27 
Hennessy, Maj. J. S.. 527 
Herndon, 469, 470, 461 
Hicks, Gov., 3G0, 369 
Higher Law. 112, 198, 285, 324. 177 
Hill, B. H., 544 
History of Slavery, 33 
Hitchcok, Gen., 559-560 
HoMerlin, 480, 482 
Hollins, 595 

House of Representatives. 545 
Holt, 547-8, 491, 493-4, 495, 520 
Huss, 509 
Hunter, Gen., 407 



Idiosyncrasies., 481, 475, 477, 407-71. 482 

3 487 507 524 
Ignorance, 520," 524, 108-9, 122. 123, 245, 

439, 455, 520 
Imprisonment of Davis, 488 
Importation of Slaves, 41 
Infidelity of Lincoln 478, 507 
Ingraham, Commodore, 591 
Insanity, 473, 477, 479, 481, 475, 407-71, 

482-3, 487. 507 
"Insult to the Flag." 431 
Invasion by Another Army, 580 



Kearsage, The, 'i88 
Kelley, 545 
Kent Gov., 152 
Kentucky Resoliitioi's. 
King, Rufus, 122 
Knapp, 494 
Knip, 50 
Korte, Capt. Fred, 50 i 



Lamb, Chas., 477. 474. 182 

Laman, Col., 351 

Landor. W. Savage, 477 

Laue, Senator, 301 

Law Violated and Confesst'd. 199 i-.] 

Law of Civilized Warfl :)09 

Lee. R. E., 4.31. 239-241. 381. 450, 4S8, 

509, 535, 539. 591-2. 587 
Lee, Robt. Henry, 18 
Lee, Richard Henrv, 313 
Lee, S. P., 531 
Leeds, Mrs. M. L„ 240 
Lenan, 478, 482 
Lenkern, Tom, 403 
Leonora, Francis, 110 
Lent, 474 
Lexington, 581 
Liberator, The, 41 
Lincoln, 113-9, 120-9, 130-4, 1-10. 161-160. 

197, 101-2, 203, 348-60, 363-372. 387 390. 

170. 179, 188, 57, 280 4, .305-9. 31S-9. 

320-330, 333-5, 336-350, 435-7. 439, 440- 

6. 450, 463-4, 456, 409-75. 458-05, 471 2. 

481, 4S5-6, 490, 493, 509, 41-44, 179 
Lodge, 264 
Lombrazo, 474, 480 
Loring. Gen.. 381 
Lothrop. 386-9, 406, 448-9 
Louisiana, 358 
Lubbock, Col.. 491 

Lucretius 480, 442 ' 

Lyon, James, 526, 631. .540 
Luther, Martin, 33, 56. 509 



Macy, Wm. L., 402 

Madison, 60. 59, 81-9, 07, 91-5, 110, 225- 

6, 232. 251. 268, 280, 300-315, Hi3-4, 

438, 459 



596 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 



Maffett, 588 

Mallory, 589 

Manassas, 526 

Man-of-War, 581 

Mars Bluff, 585 

Marauders, 489 

Marshall, Chief Justice, 390, 397, 402, 503, 

540 
Martin, Luther, 90, 249-9 
Maryland, 73, 95, 312-3 
Mason, J as., 385. 487 
Massachusetts, 45!) 
Mathering, 90, 247-9 
Maury, 588, 592 
May, Henry, 370 
McClelland, Gen., 320, 567 
McCauley, 538 

McGovern, Capt., 90, 107, 110, 30C, 347 
Mcllvaine, Bishop, 384 
McKinley, 459 
Medicine Contraband, 453-4 
Medwin, 476 

"Memoir of Last Year of War," 577 
Merrimac, The, 589 
Miles, Gen., 239, 498-9. 517, 519, 520, 529, 

531, 497, 492, 500, 502, 504-5, 506 
Military Commission, 511, 515 
Military Order, 490 
Minty, Gen., 490, 517 
Missouri Compromise, 120-1 
Mistake of the South, 52 
Moods, three, 471 
Moreau, 474, 478 
Morse, 391, 441-2, 445, 488-9, 450, 453, 

455, 458-60, 489 
Motley, John L., 188, 109-11, 196 

"National" struck 26 times, 57 

Napoleon, 503 

Naval Officers of the South, 590 

Navy of U. S., 411 

Navy of C. F., 411 

Nealy, 494 

Necessity, 435-8, 441-5, 450-2, 454, 458- 

Negroes as Citizens in North, 51 

61, 485, 577 
Nelson, Judge, 345-8, 335, 340 
Nesbit, 475, 477, 473-8, 479-81, 482 
New Haven, 92 

New Hampshire, 73-5, 242-3, 311 
New Jersey, 71-5, 313 
New Species of Patriots, 180 
New York Herald, 461 
New York, 75, 243, 309 
New York Tribune, 384, 184, 561 
New York World, 530 
Ney's Legal Maxims, 322 
Nichols, Gen., 575 
Nine Reasons, 136-142 
"Nine States," 59 

Nineteenth Century State of Mind, 100 
North, 461, 504, 508, 519, 538 
Northrop, Col., 512 
North Carolina. 76-7, 95, 315 
Northern Dissatisfaction, 390 
Northern Ministers, 383 
Nullification by 13 N. States, 192 

Oath of Office, 442-5, 448-9, 450-6 
O'Conor, 520-1, 523-4, 527. 531, 533-4, 

538-9, 540-1 
Official Falsehood Confessed, 575 
Orders, 500 



Order of Court, 543 

"Organic Growth," 256 

Ould, Kobt. 520, 531, 538, 540-1, 559-60 

Paine, 466 

I'arker, James H., 491 

Paschal, 475 

Pattern, John H., 494 

I'atterson, William, 71 

l'eal)ody, T. H., 492 

Peace Commissioners, 326, 336. 340, 

345-6, 348 
Peace Congress, The. 196-7. 301-3, 360, 

429 
Peace Measures, 48 
Pellico, 475, 479, 482 
Pendleton, Edwin, 18 
Pennsylvania, 70-1; 62 
Pennsylvania Gazette, 17 
Petition, 561 

Philadelphia Evening Journal, 462 
Philadelphia Convention, 247-9 
Pickens, Gov., 349-352 
Pickering, Col., 262, 349 352 
Pillans, Prof, 477 
Pinckney, Chas., 122 
"Pious Fraud," 72-3 
Platform Constitution, 185-6, 436, 445, 

450-4 
Piatt, Thos., 527 
Plymouth, 92 

Poe, Edgar Allen, 474, 480-2 
Police Board, 370 
Policy of Destruction, 577-9 
Political Parties (four), 178-9 
Porter, 589 

Portland Argus, The, 491 
Powell Resolutions, 189 
Presidents. The, 28, 289 
"Prayer, Humiliation and Fasting," 381, 

383 
Price. Thos., 534 

Pritchard, Col., 496, 495, 491-2, 517 
"Pure White Republic," The, 450 
Puritans, 27 



Question (a), 52; 57 
Quincy, Josiah, 275 



Randal,, 545 

Randolph, Edward, 252 

Randolph Resolutions, 57 

Ratifying Ordinances, 81 

Rawle's View of the Constitution, 240- 

5, 291 -, 420 
Rawle, John, 240 
Rawle, Judge Edward 
Read, Wm. B., 526, 531, 541, 588 
Reason Why, 522 
Records, The Two, 586 
Refugees, 582 

Regan, John, 488, 491-5, 529 
Relief Squadron, 327-335, 350-2 
Reluctance of the South, 182 
Report of Committee, 493-4 
Report Mutilated. 548,50 
Representations of Border States, 407-8, 

417 
Republican Party, 51, 113-14, 127, l."9- 

132, 130, 149, 195, 445-6, 450, 457-8, 516, 

522, 545, 555 
Resolutions of Prisoners, 562 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 597 



Resolutions of Davis, 233 
Resolutious of Hi'ury 19 
Responsibility for the Wir, 408 0, -iZ), 

433 557 
Restriction of Slavery, 197, 161, 431 
Reward for Arrest of Davis, 4901, 519- 
Retreat from Lynchburg, 577 
Rhode Island, 76-9, 80. 95, 111, 243, 309, 

315 
Richmond Convention, The, 178 
Richmond Examiner, The, 560 
Riots, 510, 522 
Rock Island. 557 
Rousseau, 482, 478-9 
Rules of War, 523 
Rush, 480 
Rutledge, Ann, 466-7 



Sagamon Journal, 28, 469 

Samans, 535 

Sand, 479, 482 

Sanders, Geo. N., 490 

Schill, Augustus, 533 

Schurz, Carl. 415-6 

Scott, Gen., 340, 349, 369 

Secession, 182-4, 107. 147, I.j9-ie0, 201-3, 

287-8, 167, 192, 434, 437 9, 447, 450, 455, 

430, 90-2, 106-111, 176, 181, 508-9 
Sections equally divided, what? 167 
Sedgwiclj, 204 
Semmes, 588 
Seward, 102, 114, 162 133-6, 345-7 348, 

350-4, 374-381, 388, 170, 398 407, 462-488, 

520, 530 
Seymour, Gov., 417-8 
Shackles, 498-9, 500-1, 504-5, 506-7, 516, 

518, 525, 535 
Shea, 527, 531 

Sherman, Gen., 488-9, 491, 511, 572-8, 

527, 573 
Shelley, 480, 476, 474 
Shelley, Mary, 476-7 
Silence of the Constitution, 72-8, 162, 

125-8, 482 
Six False Exaggerations, 138 
Slavers, The, 108, 326, 34-5, 47 
Slavery, 116-9, 120-1, 123-6, 134 -S, 150-0, 

158, 197. 326, 381, 385, 105-6, 405-14, 

417, 443-7, 450, 456, 158, 34-5, 47,468, 

462-3 458, 482 
Small-Pox, 555-6 
Smith, Gerrit, 533 
South, The, 129, 132, 159-160, 27, 180, 

190, 196, 434, 437, 447, 468, 492 501, 

519, 538, 509, 575 
Socrates, 535 

"Solemn Convocation," The, 243-5 

Southern Journal, 28 

South Carolina, 73, 120. 147, 207, 213, 

214, 221, 348 
Southern Presidents and Jurists, 28 
Southey, 474, 516 
Sovereignty, 70-5, 63, 76-9, 80-9, 90-2, 

106, 131, 246, 250, 430 
Spain, 380, 508 
Spanish Inquisition, 546. 549 
Speed, Atty. Gen., 243 
Speech of Toombs, 169 
Stanton's Report, 559, 562 
"States Not Named," 95-6 

"Star of the West," 347 
Stephens, A. H.. 196-207 289, 326, 384, 

167-8, 495, .558-9, 561, 566 
Stevens, Tradeus, 528 



Stevens, Dr., 548 

Stone Col., 573, 469 

Story, Judge, 311-12 

Substitutes for the Constitution, 104-5 

114. 177, 278, 255-9, 261 
Suratt, Mrs. 495 



Tabbot, Capt. 351 

Tacony The, 588 

Tallahassee, The, 588 

Tannahill, 480-2 

Tarbell, 414-5, 435, 440 

Tasso, 480, 475, 482 

Tattnell, 592 

Tany, Chief .Justice, 127, 134 

Terrtories, 100, 117, 117, 118, 122 131 

143, 461 , , o , 

Test, The, 509 
Texas, 359 

Thayer, James S., 297 
Thomas Gen., 340, 534, 529 
Thompson, Jacob, 490, 493 
Thorpe, 43-6, 76, 88. 90-1, 100-3, 113-8, 

122. 140-1, 216-221, 223, 286, 293, 319, 

353-4, 366, 404, 256, 461 
Three Despotisms 54 
Three Kings, 588 
Tilton, Capt. 498 
Titlow, Capt. 500, 514 
Todd, Mary, 469-70 
Toombs, Robt., 146-158. 161-8, 169-175, 

180 
Treatment of Prisoners, 511, 544 
Trent Affair, The, 385 
Trial of Davis, 511, 513, 516 
Troubesome Question, The. 57 
Trumbull, 297 
Tucker, Beverly, 491 
Tucker, Randolph, 531 
Twelfth Amendment, 233 
Two Records, The, 587 



Uncivilized War, 261, 432 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, 41, 99, 103, 112, 288, 

420 
Underwood, Judge, 521, 527. 531-3, 535, 

538-9, 540 
Union Soldiers, 533 
Unwritten Constitution, 97-9, 100 3, 111, 

285 325 
Upton, Gen., 489; 490; 540 

Vanlandingham, 417-418 

Vanderoilt, Cornelius, 533 

Vantine, C. H. 267 

Vattel, 87; 509 

Verplank, 213; 223 

Vindicated, 542 

Violated Conslitution, 72-8; 162, 125-8; 

104-5; 114; 177; 278, 225 9; 261; 438; 

442-5; 450; 440-5 
Violent Debate, 21 
Violence, 466 
Visions, 472; 476 

Virginia, 74-5; 95; 120; 213-17; 226; 243; 
309; 360-4 

Virginian Professsr, The, 262-7 
Volney, 466 
Voltaire, 466 



598 



RICHARDSON'S DEFENSE OF THE SOUTH 



Wadell, 588 

Warren Hastings. 538-9 , , 

Washington College, 517 

AVadsworth, 481 

Wallace, S. Teacle. 370 

Walworth, Chancellor, 299 

War, The, 128; 60; 526 

Washlnjrton, 27, 05; 67; 76; 110; 208; 

283; 287; 307 ;315; 409; 438; 459; 487; 

523 
Washington City. 520 
Webster, Daniel, 68; 111; 123; 218-221; 

223: 250-275; 280-284; 287; 307; 291; 

343; 570 
We, the People," 91 -2; 95-8; 107 
Weed, Thurlow, 384 
Welch, 303; 381; 533 
Wells, Gideon, 353-4, 381, 541, 559 
West Pofnt Military Academy, 239-240; 

420 
When the States were eleven to eleven, 

49 
White, Dr., 550 



Whitehead, 540 

Whitney, 471; 481-3 

Wickliff. 509 

Wilkes, Chap Charles. 385-9 

Wilkens, 208 

Wilkinson. 588 

Williams, 476 

William P. Clyde, The. 517 

Williamson, 509, 589 

Wilmer, Bishop, 240 

Wilmer, .Joseph, 241 

Wilson, Gen.. 490-1; 493; 495; 517 

Wilson, John, 306 

Wilson, Justice, 203 

Winder, Gen.. 549, 450-2 

Winslow. 591 

Wirz. 547, 549-550; 553; 562 

Wise, Henry A., 590 

Witness, 536 



Yancy, Ben, 384 
Youth, 466-8 



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